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In recent years determinants of students’ achievement has received much attention. Empirical studies have found that students’ characteristics, family background, school attended, and regional residence are major factors affecting student performance. In this paper, we analyze the 2009 OECD-PISA (spell PISA) survey to examine individual background characteristics influencing the reading achievement of Italian 15 years-old students using the quantile regression (QR) approach. The QR approach allows researchers to analyze changes in size and direction of predictor estimates on student performance across the entire distribution of reading achievement scores. Results indicate significant effects of predictors on reading achievement operating differently across quantiles, suggesting different pathways to achievement for low and high performing readers. In particular, some family background predictors (parental education, computer availability at home, and availability of a desk for homework at home), the school program attended and, the region of student residence play important but differing role for low and high performing readers. For example, parental education shows a positive effect on student reading, academic (general) programs perform better than vocational or technical, and Northern regions perform better than Center-Southern ones, with differentiated effects along the distribution of students’ reading scores. These findings should be carefully considered by policymakers when outlining strategies to enhance student performance at all levels along the reading continuum of low and high scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural materials, such as straw bale and earth, have substantially less embodied energy than processed materials, so that their use in building construction can give a valuable contribution to sustainability. This paper presents a natural multi-sheet wall package (named straw wall, SW) consisting of straw bale layer and innovative natural plasters, giving a rational evaluation of its potential of use in the sustainable building construction. The new building component was investigated by analyzing its environmental impact through the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) from "Cradle to Gate" and its energy performance using dynamic simulation of a building case study; the energy saving potential of SW was assessed in different climate conditions in Italy. The innovative package highlighted excellent energy performance with respect to the NZEB reference, as prescribed by the Italian regulation, for all climates. Considering only the production and construction phases, the Embodied Energy associated to the innovative wall system is about the half of the value related to a traditional wall package and the CO 2 equivalent emissions differ by more than 40%(Pescara site). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]