A 'Radical' Approach to Reading Development in Chinese: The Role of Semantic Radicals and Phonetic Radicals

Two studies investigating the significance of radical knowledge in Chinese reading development are reported in this paper. Study 1 examined the semantic radical knowledge of 20 Grade 1, 20 Grade 3, and 20 Grade 5 Chinese children in Hong Kong. It was found that various types of semantic radical knowledge, including the position and semantic category of semantic radicals, correlated significantly with Chinese word reading and sentence comprehension. Study 2 examined phonetic radical knowledge with another three groups of 20 Chinese children in Grades 1, 3, and 5 respectively. It was found that various measures of phonetic radical knowledge, including the function and sound value of phonetic radicals, correlated significantly with Chinese word reading. These studies found that, developmentally, the children started acquiring the knowledge of character structure, position, semantic category, and sound value of radicals from about Grade 1. However, they did not understand that the function of semantic radicals is to provide meaning cues in reading until Grade 3. The authors concluded that the radical is an important orthographic processing unit in reading development in Chinese.published_or_final_versio

(Dis)connections between specific language impairment and dyslexia in Chinese

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Reporting guidelines for surgical technique could be improved: a scoping review and a call for action.

To identify reporting guidelines related to surgical technique and propose recommendations for areas that require improvement. A protocol-guided scoping review was conducted. A literature search of MEDLINE, the EQUATOR Network Library, Google Scholar, and Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations was conducted to identify surgical technique reporting guidelines published up to December 31, 2021. We finally included 55 surgical technique reporting guidelines, vascular surgery (n = 18, 32.7%) was the most common among the clinical specialties covered. The included guidelines generally showed a low degree of international and multidisciplinary cooperation. Few guidelines provided a detailed development process (n = 14, 25.5%), conducted a systematic literature review (n = 13, 23.6%), used the Delphi method (n = 4, 7.3%), or described post-publication strategy (n = 6, 10.9%). The vast majority guidelines focused on the reporting of intraoperative period (n = 50, 90.9%). However, of the guidelines requiring detailed descriptions of surgical technique methodology (n = 43, 78.2%), most failed to provide guidance on what constitutes an adequate description. Our study demonstrates significant deficiencies in the development methodology and practicality of reporting guidelines for surgical technique. A standardized reporting guideline that is developed rigorously and focuses on details of surgical technique may serve as a necessary impetus for change

Spontaneous versus mechanical ventilation during video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for spontaneous pneumothorax: a randomized trial

Objective: Spontaneous ventilation video-assisted thoracic surgery (SV-VATS) is reported to have superior or equal efficacy on postoperative recovery to mechanical ventilation VATS (MV-VATS). However, perioperative safety of the SV-VATS blebectomy is not entirely demonstrated. Methods: We performed a noninferiority, randomized controlled trial (No. NCT03016858) for primary spontaneous pneumothorax patients aged 16 to 50 years undergoing a SV-VATS and the MV-VATS procedure. The trial was conducted at 10 centers in China from April 2017 to January 2019. The primary outcome was the comparison of intra- and postoperative complications between SV-VATS and MV-VATS procedures. Secondary outcomes included total analgesia dose, change of vital sign during surgery, procedural duration, recovery time, postoperative visual analog pain scores, and hospitalization length. Results: In this study, 335 patients were included. There was no significant difference between the SV-VATS group and the MV-VATS group in the intra- and postoperative complication rates (17.90% vs 22.09%; relative risk, 0.81; 95% confidence interval, 0.52-1.26; P = .346). The SV-VATS group was associated with significantly decreased total dose of intraoperative opioid agents; that is, sufentanil (11.37 μg vs 20.92 μg; P < .001) and remifentanil (269.78 μg vs 404.96 μg; P < .001). The SV-VATS procedure was also associated with shorter extubation time (12.28 minutes vs 17.30 minutes; P < .001), postanesthesia care unit recovery time (25.43 minutes vs 30.67 minutes; P = .02) and food intake time (346.07 minute vs 404.02 minutes; P = .002). Moreover, the SV-VATS procedure deceased the anesthesia cost compared with the MV-VATS ($297.81 vs$399.81; P < .001). Conclusions: SV-VATS was shown to be noninferior to MV-VATS in term of complication rate and in selected patients undergoing blebectomy for primary spontaneous pneumothorax

The sperm factor: paternal impact beyond genes

The fact that sperm carry more than the paternal DNA has only been discovered just over a decade ago. With this discovery, the idea that the paternal condition may have direct implications for the fitness of the offspring had to be revisited. While this idea is still highly debated, empirical evidence for paternal effects is accumulating. Male condition not only affects male fertility but also offspring early development and performance later in life. Several factors have been identified as possible carriers of non-genetic information, but we still know little about their origin and function and even less about their causation. I consider four possible non-mutually exclusive adaptive and non-adaptive explanations for the existence of paternal effects in an evolutionary context. In addition, I provide a brief overview of the main non-genetic components found in sperm including DNA methylation, chromatin modifications, RNAs and proteins. I discuss their putative functions and present currently available examples for their role in transferring non-genetic information from the father to the offspring. Finally, I identify some of the most important open questions and present possible future research avenues

Learning of Putonghua helps children in Hong Kong master modern standard Chinese better

Studied whether learning Putonghua helped the learning of written Modern Standard Chinese (MSC) in Hong Kong school children. 120 1st, 3rd, and 5th graders were recruited from a school using Cantonese (Cantonese group) as medium in teaching MSC and a school using Putonghua (Putonghua group). Ss completed the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices and the tasks of Putonghua (listening, notation), Cantonese-MSC conversion (recognition, production), and literacy (Chinese word reading, reading comprehension, sentence construction). The task achievements were studied between groups using age as a covariate. The partial correlation coefficients among the tasks were computed after controlling for the effect of IQ. The results are that the 5th graders of Putonghua group did significantly better than their counterparts in the Cantonese group in Cantonese-MSC conversion, reading comprehension, sentence construction in MSC; and that Putonghua proficiency was significantly correlated with reading comprehension, sentence construction in MSC. It is concluded that children who are proficient in Putonghua are more able to use vocabulary and syntax acceptable in MSC thereby facilitating their learning of written MSC. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved