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The increasing number of primary students with varying degrees of exposure to a family minority language requires a reflection on whether specific aspects of their daily language experience influence their learning. Indeed, Minority Language Children (MLC) often report difficulties in reading that must be better investigated to exclude neurodevelopmental conditions such as developmental dyslexia. To this aim, we developed a new instrument, the Daily Linguistic Practice Interview. It allows for collecting information about the linguistic practice and use in the family (Scale A) and extra-family context (Scale B), and about the child's linguistic preferences and habits (Scale C). The Interview further provides analogic quantitative measures of minority language active speaking with mother, father, and passive listening, in the form of clocks to paint. The relationship between these linguistic aspects and reading skills was investigated on 79 MLC aged 8 to 11 y.o.through a correlational approach and regression models. Our results show that family and extra-family language use influence accurate lexical recognition, moreover a “mother effect” broadly affects reading skills in the majority language. Our findings suggest that MLC deserve a more careful evaluation of learning disorders with ad hoc standardized tests, that incorporates information about the family language exposure.

In this study, we validated the "ReadFree tool", a computerised battery of 12 visual and auditory tasks developed to identify poor readers also in minority-language children (MLC). We tested the task-specific discriminant power on 142 Italian-monolingual participants (8-13 years old) divided into monolingual poor readers (N = 37) and good readers (N = 105) according to standardised Italian reading tests. The performances at the discriminant tasks of the "ReadFree tool" were entered into a classification and regression tree (CART) model to identify monolingual poor and good readers. The set of classification rules extracted from the CART model were applied to the MLC's performance and the ensuing classification was compared to the one based on standardised Italian reading tests. According to the CART model, auditory go-no/go (regular), RAN and Entrainment(100bpm) were the most discriminant tasks. When compared with the clinical classification, the CART model accuracy was 86% for the monolinguals and 76% for the MLC. Executive functions and timing skills turned out to have a relevant role in reading. Results of the CART model on MLC support the idea that ad hoc standardised tasks that go beyond reading are needed.

Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is considered a universal marker of developmental dyslexia (DD) and could also be helpful to identify a reading deficit in minority-language children (MLC), in which it may be hard to disentangle whether the reading difficulties are due to a learning disorder or a lower proficiency in the language of instruction. We tested reading and rapid naming skills in monolingual Good Readers (mGR), monolingual Poor Readers (mPR), and MLC, by using our new version of RAN, the RAN-Shapes, in 127 primary school students (from 3rd to 5th grade). In line with previous research, MLC showed, on average, lower reading performances as compared to mGR. However, the two groups performed similarly to the RAN-Shapes task. On the contrary, the mPR group underperformed both in the reading and the RAN tasks. Our findings suggest that reading difficulties and RAN performance can be dissociated in MLC; consequently, the performance at the RAN-Shapes may contribute to the identification of children at risk of a reading disorder without introducing any linguistic bias, when testing MLC.

Introduction and objectives: Percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation is currently a common procedure in patients with congenital heart disease with a dysfunctional right ventricular outflow tract. Until April 2022, there were only balloon-expandable valves available in Europe, which did not cover the needs of the different anatomies of the right ventricular outflow tract. Since this year we have available the self-expandible Venus P-valve (MedTech, China). We present the initial experience with this new percutaneous pulmonary valve in our center. Methods: Description of the valve implants with the new self-expandible valve performed between September and November 2022. Results: Eight valve implants have been performed, all successful and without severe complications during the procedure. All patients had severe pulmonary regurgitation with a dilated right ventricle and severe dilatation of the pulmonary trunk and were not good candidates for percutaneous balloon-expandable valves. Five patients had a tetralogy of Fallot. In 7 patients, the implant was performed through the femoral vein and in one through jugular access. As a safety measure, all valves were implanted through a DrySeal sheath (Gore, W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., USA). The mean hospital stay was 3-day. Conclusions: Valve implantation with the new self-expandible Venus P-valve was, in our preliminary experience, a safe and feasible procedure, allowing us to treat very dilated right outflow tracts, not suitable for the current balloon-expandable valves., Introducción y objetivos: El implante percutáneo de válvula pulmonar es, actualmente, un procedimiento habitual en pacientes con cardiopatías congénitas con un tracto de salida del ventrículo derecho disfuncionante. Hasta abril de 2022, en Europa solo estaban disponibles las válvulas expandibles con balón, que no cubrían las necesidades de las distintas anatomías del tracto de salida derecho. Desde ese año está disponible la válvula autoexpandible Venus P (MedTech, China). Presentamos la experiencia inicial en nuestro centro con esta nueva válvula pulmonar para implante percutáneo. Métodos: Descripción de los implantes valvulares con la nueva válvula autoexpandible realizados entre septiembre y noviembre de 2022. Resultados: Se han realizado 8 implantes valvulares, todos con éxito y sin complicaciones graves durante el procedimiento. Todos los pacientes presentaban insuficiencia pulmonar grave con repercusión sobre el ventrículo derecho y dilatación del tronco pulmonar, y no eran buenos candidatos para las válvulas expandibles con balón. Cinco pacientes tenían una tetralogía de Fallot de base. En 7 pacientes el implante se llevó a cabo por vía femoral y en 1 por vía yugular. Como medida de seguridad, en todos los pacientes el implante se hizo a través de una vaina DrySeal (Gore, W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., Estados Unidos). La media de tiempo de ingreso fue de 3 días. Conclusiones: El implante de la nueva válvula autoexpandible Venus P fue, en nuestra experiencia preliminar, un procedimiento seguro y factible, que permite valvular tractos de salida derechos muy dilatados con contraindicación para las actuales válvulas expandibles con balón.

The cost-effective implementation of nanofibrillated cellulose (CNF) at industrial scale requires optimizing the quality of the nanofibers according to their final application. Therefore, a portfolio of CNFs with different qualities is necessary, as well as further knowledge about how to obtain each of the main qualities. This paper presents the influence of various production techniques on the morphological characteristics and properties of CNFs produced from a mixture of recycled fibers. Five different pretreatments have been investigated: a mechanical pretreatment (PFI refining), two enzymatic hydrolysis strategies, and TEMPO-mediated oxidation under two different NaClO concentrations. For each pretreatment, five high-pressure homogenization (HPH) conditions have been considered. Our results show that the pretreatment determines the yield and the potential of HPH to enhance fibrillation and, therefore, the final CNF properties. These results enable one to select the most effective production method with the highest yield of produced CNFs from recovered paper for the desired CNF quality in diverse applications., Ministerio de economía y competitividad, Ministerio de economía y competitividad, Ministerio de ciencia e innovación, Comunidad de Madrid, Depto. de Ingeniería Química y de Materiales, Fac. de Ciencias Químicas, TRUE, pub

The accumulation of alkali metals generated during biomass combustion onto the catalysts employed for off-gas treatment can have a detrimental effect on their performance. This work investigates the effect of potassium as a model alkali on an efficient copper-based catalyst supported on SmCeO2 @TiO2. The addition of potassium modifies the redox properties of the Cu species or, more specifically, the metal-ceria interface, providing better catalytic activity for NO reduction in oxidizing conditions. SmCeO2 @TiO2 stabilizes highly dispersed copper species, and the presence of potassium introduces surface distortions that modify the lability of oxygen atoms. The results demonstrate the key role of surface defects and labile oxygen species associated with the CeO2 support. It was found that both Cu/SmCeO2 @TiO2 and K/Cu/SmCeO2 @TiO2 catalysts fully oxidized CO below 350 °C and actively reduced NO with CO in the presence of excess oxygen, reaching a maximum NO conversion of 65% at 316 °C and 83% at 330 °C, respectively, while undesired NO2 release was minimized in the alkaline-loaded sample. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.