Characterization of gaze in handwriting of High and Low Frequency Word of Schoolchildren with Dyslexia

Writing is extremely important for our academic and professional life and can affect our performance in productive educational activities, favouring us or not. Schoolchildren with dyslexia bring difficulties and reduced school performance due to their condition of deprivation in written production. This is because schoolchildren with dyslexia have difficulty acquiring spelling knowledge and show poor phonological skills. This study aimed to characterize the performance of schoolchildren with dyslexia in “gaze” for the handwriting of High and Low-frequency words. A total of 24 schoolchildren participated in the study. They were between 8 to 11 years and 11 months of age, of both sexes, and they were attending the 3rd to the 5th year of Elementary School in the city of Marília-SP. The schoolchildren were divided into groups: GI, composed of 12schoolchildren with an interdisciplinary diagnosis of developmental dyslexia, and GII, composed of 12 schoolchildren with good academic performance, paired with GI according to the school grade level. These schoolchildren were submitted to computerized handwriting evaluation using a Brazilian adaptation of the Software Ductus. All schoolchildren were submitted to a copy of words already selected according to Brazilian Portuguese criteria of frequency and codification rule. A measure of “gaze” was used, that is, when the schoolchildren stopped their handwriting to search/look up at the screen to confirm the information about the words. The results indicated a significant difference between GI and GII, with GI schoolchildren performing more gaze when compared with GII, i.e., taking longer motor breaks to perform the gaze. Therefore, there was a rupture in the central processing with the peripheral when the child performed the gauze more times since he had to confirm the characteristics of this word during the writing process (difficulty in accessing the orthographic lexicon) and with that, there was a break in the movement of handwriting (since there was not enough information in the central plane to complete that motor memory and finish the word). It was concluded that there were gaps between the central (orthographic) and peripheral (motor pauses processes, suggesting deficits in the formation of motor programs for GI and the lack of automation of motor processes

The Pixel Luminosity Telescope: a detector for luminosity measurement at CMS using silicon pixel sensors

The Pixel Luminosity Telescope is a silicon pixel detector dedicated to luminosity measurement at the CMS experiment at the LHC. It is located approximately 1.75 m from the interaction point and arranged into 16 “telescopes”, with eight telescopes installed around the beam pipe at either end of the detector and each telescope composed of three individual silicon sensor planes. The per-bunch instantaneous luminosity is measured by counting events where all three planes in the telescope register a hit, using a special readout at the full LHC bunch-crossing rate of 40 MHz. The full pixel information is read out at a lower rate and can be used to determine calibrations, corrections, and systematic uncertainties for the online and offline measurements. This paper details the commissioning, operational history, and performance of the detector during Run 2 (2015–18) of the LHC, as well as preparations for Run 3, which will begin in 2022

Cancer Risk in Diabetic Patients Treated with Metformin: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: A growing body of evidence has suggested that metformin potentially reduces the risk of cancer. Our objective was to enhance the precision of estimates of the effect of metformin on the risk of any-site and site-specific cancers in patients with diabetes. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We performed a search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, ISI Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov for pertinent articles published as of October 12, 2011, and included them in a systematic review and meta-analysis. We calculated pooled risk ratios (RRs) for overall cancer mortality and cancer incidence. Of the 21,195 diabetic patients reported in 6 studies (4 cohort studies, 2 RCTs), 991 (4.5%) cases of death from cancer were reported. A total of 11,117 (5.3%) cases of incident cancer at any site were reported among 210,892 patients in 10 studies (2 RCTs, 6 cohort studies, 2 case-control studies). The risks of cancer among metformin users were significantly lower than those among non-metformin users: the pooled RRs (95% confidence interval) were 0.66 (0.49-0.88) for cancer mortality, 0.67 (0.53-0.85) for all-cancer incidence, 0.68 (0.53-0.88) for colorectal cancer (n = 6), 0.20 (0.07-0.59) for hepatocellular cancer (n = 4), 0.67 (0.45-0.99) for lung cancer (n = 3). CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: The use of metformin in diabetic patients was associated with significantly lower risks of cancer mortality and incidence. However, this analysis is mainly based on observational studies and our findings underscore the more need for long-term RCTs to confirm this potential benefit for individuals with diabetes