Potential Logographic Dyslexics Identified via Self-Reporting during a Questionnaire Survey in Taiwan

According to the patterns of difficulties of the dyslexics that have been reported in Western societies, a questionnaire in traditional Chinese was developed to carry out initial screening among Taiwanese. The questionnaire includes 30 items with four-point scales and 7 open-ended questions. Of the 2133 copies distributed, a total of 1599 questionnaires were collected which gives a 75.0% response rate and 1442 were completed. The mean of 30-item scores collected from 1442 participants is 87.99 ± 11.9. Among these participants, 9 self-reported potential logographic dyslexics have been identified. The individual scores of 30 items of the nine subjects were at least 1 SD to 4.5 SD lower than that of their counterparts. There are two potential logographic dyslexics families show genetic influence. Since there is no standard test for dyslexics, we developed a 30-item questionnaire that can be completed in 15-20 minutes on average. The questionnaire may serve as a low cost, initial screening tool and allows the potential probands to self-report while the formal diagnosis is not available

Gait performance and prefrontal cortex activation during single and dual task walking in older adults with different cognitive levels

BackgroundGrowing evidence shows the cognitive function influences the motor performance. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) as a part of the executive locomotor pathway is also important for cognitive function. This study investigated the differences in motor function and brain activity among older adults with different cognitive levels, and examined the significance of cognition on motor functions.MethodsNormal control (NC), individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or mild dementia (MD) were enrolled in this study. All participants received a comprehensive assessment including cognitive function, motor function, PFC activity during walking, and fear of fall. The assessment of cognitive function included general cognition, attention, executive function, memory, and visuo-spatial. The assessment of motor function included timed up and go (TUG) test, single walking (SW), and cognitive dual task walking (CDW).ResultsIndividuals with MD had worse SW, CDW and TUG performance as compared to individuals with MCI and NC. These gait and balance performance did not differ significantly between MCI and NC. Motor functions all correlated with general cognition, attention, executive function, memory, and visuo-spatial ability. Attention ability measured by trail making test A (TMT-A) was the best predictor for TUG and gait velocity. There were no significant differences in PFC activity among three groups. Nevertheless, the PFC activated more during CDW as compared with SW in individuals with MCI (p = 0.000), which was not demonstrated in the other two groups.ConclusionMD demonstrated worse motor function as compared to NC and MCI. The greater PFC activity during CDW in MCI may be considered as a compensatory strategy for maintaining the gait performance. Motor function was related to the cognitive function, and the TMT A was the best predictor for the gait related performance in present study among older adults

Pandemic fatigue impedes mitigation of COVID-19 in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has implemented stringent public health and social measures (PHSMs) to curb each of the four COVID-19 epidemic waves since January 2020. The third wave between July and September 2020 was brought under control within 2 m, while the fourth wave starting from the end of October 2020 has taken longer to bring under control and lasted at least 5 mo. Here, we report the pandemic fatigue as one of the potential reasons for the reduced impact of PHSMs on transmission in the fourth wave. We contacted either 500 or 1,000 local residents through weekly random-digit dialing of landlines and mobile telephones from May 2020 to February 2021. We analyze the epidemiological impact of pandemic fatigue by using the large and detailed cross-sectional telephone surveys to quantify risk perception and self-reported protective behaviors and mathematical models to incorporate population protective behaviors. Our retrospective prediction suggests that an increase of 100 daily new reported cases would lead to 6.60% (95% CI: 4.03, 9.17) more people worrying about being infected, increase 3.77% (95% CI: 2.46, 5.09) more people to avoid social gatherings, and reduce the weekly mean reproduction number by 0.32 (95% CI: 0.20, 0.44). Accordingly, the fourth wave would have been 14% (95% CI%: −53%, 81%) smaller if not for pandemic fatigue. This indicates the important role of mitigating pandemic fatigue in maintaining population protective behaviors for controlling COVID-19

Corrigendum to: The TianQin project: current progress on science and technology

In the originally published version, this manuscript included an error related to indicating the corresponding author within the author list. This has now been corrected online to reflect the fact that author Jun Luo is the corresponding author of the article

Measurement of the cross section of e+e−→Ξ−Ξˉ+e^+e^-\rightarrow\Xi^{-}\bar\Xi^{+} at center-of-mass energies between 3.510 and 4.843 GeV

Using $e^+e^-$ collision data corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 12.9 $fb^{-1}$ collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider, the exclusive Born cross sections and the effective form factors of the reaction $e^+e^-\rightarrow\Xi^{-}\bar\Xi^{+}$ are measured via the single baryon-tag method at 23 center-of-mass energies between 3.510 and 4.843 GeV. Evidence for the decay $\psi(3770)\rightarrow\Xi^{-}\bar\Xi^{+}$ is observed with a significance of 4.5$\sigma$ by analyzing the measured cross sections together with earlier BESIII results. For the other charmonium(-like) states $\psi(4040)$, $\psi(4160)$, $Y(4230)$, $Y(4360)$, $\psi(4415)$, and $Y(4660)$, no significant signal of their decay to $\Xi^-\bar \Xi^+$ is found. For these states, upper limits of the products of the branching fraction and the electronic partial width at the 90% confidence level are provided.Comment: 18 pages, 10 pages, 4 table

First Observation of a Three-Resonance Structure in e+e−→e^+e^-\rightarrow{non-open} Charm Hadrons

We report the measurement of the cross sections for $e^+e^-$$\rightarrow${nOCH} (nOCH stands for non-open charm hadrons) with improved precision at center-of-mass energies from 3.645 to 3.871 GeV. We observe for the first time a three-resonance structure in the energy-dependent lineshape of the cross sections, which are $\mathcal R(3760)$, $\mathcal R(3780)$ and $\mathcal R(3810)$ with significances of $9.4\sigma$, $15.7\sigma$, and $9.8\sigma$, respectively. The $\mathcal R(3810)$ is observed for the first time. We found two solutions in analysis of the cross sections. For solution I [solution II], we measure the mass, the total width and the product of electronic width and nOCH decay branching fraction to be $(3805.8 \pm 1.1 \pm 2.7)$ [$(3805.8 \pm 1.1 \pm 2.7)$] MeV/$c^2$, $(11.6 \pm 2.6 \pm 1.9)$ [$(11.5 \pm 2.5 \pm 1.8)$] MeV, and $(10.8\pm 3.2\pm 2.3)$ [$(11.0\pm 2.9\pm 2.4)$] eV for the $\mathcal R(3810)$, respectively. In addition, we measure the branching fractions ${\mathcal B}({\mathcal R}(3760)$$\rightarrow${nOCH}$)=(24.5 \pm 13.4 \pm 27.4)\% [(6.8 \pm 5.4 \pm 7.6)\%]$ for the first time, and ${\mathcal B}(\mathcal R(3780)$$\rightarrow${nOCH}$)=(11.6 \pm 5.8 \pm 7.8)\% [(10.3 \pm 4.5 \pm 6.9)\%]$. Moreover, we determine the open-charm (OC) branching fraction ${\mathcal B}({\mathcal R}$$(3760)\rightarrow${OC}$)=(75.5 \pm 13.4 \pm 27.4)\% [(93.2 \pm 5.4 \pm 7.6)\%]$, which supports the interpretation of $\mathcal R(3760)$ as an OC pair molecular state, but contained a simple four-quark state component. The first uncertainties are from fits to the cross sections, and the second are systematic