Oral language and narrative skills constitute very critical factors for children's academic performance and social competence. The aim of the present study was to investigate the developmental patterns of story retelling as well as the relationship between oral language and story retelling in preschool and primary school children. 237 Greekspeaking children (4-5, 5-6 and 6-7 years old) participated in the study. Vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, morphological awareness skills and pragmatics were examined through a standardized psychometric test. Story retelling was measured by inviting the children to listen to a story and then retell it. Children's narratives were evaluated according to microstructure (use of conjunctions and lexical cohesion) and macrostructure (story grammar and temporal sequencing) criteria. The results showed that older children performed better than the younger ones across all the oral language and story retelling tasks.Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) revealed that vocabulary skills stand out as a stable predictor across all the three age groups. A new finding was also demonstrated, highlighting that morphological awareness, phonological awareness skills and pragmatics work together with vocabulary skills in diverse patterns at different points of a child's development, in order to support his/her ability to retell a story.

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The aim of the study was to investigate the developmental path of narrative skills of preschool and primary school children. Two hundred thirty seven Greek-speaking children from various regions of Greece participated in the study. They were separated in three age groups: 4-5, 5-6 and 6-7 years old. Retelling and narrative production skills were evaluated. Correlations between the two narrative skills were investigated. Four illustrated stories were used (two stories for retelling and two stories for narrative production).Children’s narratives were collected and transcribed from the recordings. Then, narratives were coded and assessed according to certain criteria: microstructure/ cohesion (conjunction and lexical cohesion) and macrostructure/ coherence (story grammar and temporal sequencing of actions and events). The findings revealed that narratives of older children tended to be better according to the story structure criteria in comparison to narratives produced by younger children. In addition, the qualitative analysis of children’s narratives demonstrated the different narrative levels (labeling, listing, connecting, sequencing and narrating) proposed by Stadler and Ward (2005). Children of all age groups performed better in retelling test compared to narrative production test. The results also revealed differences in performance in relation to gender (girls performed better than boys). Finally, a statistically significant correlation between children’s performance in retelling and narrative production skills was found. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical models of narrative abilities. Implications for research, theory and educational purposes are also discussed.

The diversity of the indigenous yeast strains present in the product of spontaneous vinification (5-day fermentation period) of the red grape variety Avgoustiatis Zakynthou (Ionian Islands, Greece) was explored, followed by determination of the alcohol tolerance of all identified strains. The non-Saccharomyces yeast species found were Kloeckera sp., Rhodotorula glutinis, Candida famata and Candida lusitaniae with frequencies 29%, 16.2%, 15.7%, and 9.1% respectively. In addition, the yeast species Saccharomyces cerevisiae 1 and 2 were encountered with the same frequency equal to 14.8%. Candida famata, Candida lusitaniae and Kloeckera sp. were the non-Saccharomyces yeast species which exhibited the highest endurance in alcohol, with some of their strains reaching tolerances up to 10% v/v. The large majority of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains were shown to tolerate up to 17% v/v alcohol. A total of thirty Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains were selected and employed for the production of an equal number of Avgoustiatis Zakynthou wines via small scale vinifications. Subsequently, the antioxidant activity of all wine samples was determined via measurement of their capacity to scavenge the DPPH (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) free radical. The antioxidant activity of the 30 wine samples had a mean value of (0.81 ± 0.09) mmol Trolox/L (Min: 0.64-Max: 0.95). Statistical analysis provided evidence for a weak dependence of the observed antioxidant activity on the yeast strain employed during fermentation. To our knowledge, this is the first study on the indigenous yeast diversity associated with the red grape variety Avgoustiatis, which grows on the island of Zakynthos (Ionian Islands, Greece), and of the antioxidant activity of the produced wine.

Since December 2019 mankind is agonized over the deadly coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which is due to the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (Sars-cov-2). Methods: In this retrospective study, laboratory findings and demographic features form all confirmed COVID-19 patients who attended the Emergency Department of both branches of our hospital during the first semester of 2021 were collected and analyzed. The working hypothesis was that initial laboratory data at the time the patients seeked medical assistant for the first time, regardless of comorbidities and day of onset of symptoms, can help predict patients’ outcome. Demographic data and laboratory tests were compared between hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients. Results: Data of 270 patients were collected and analyzed retrospectively. 31 blood measurement parameters performed in both hospital branches were compared between hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients. Of those, WBC count (p=0.016), neutrophil percentage (p<0.001), lymphocyte percentage (p<0.001), platelet count (p=0.041), glucose (p<0.001), urea (p<0.001), creatinine (p<0.001), SGOT (p=0.024), CK (p<0.053), LDH (p<0.001), GGT (p<0.001), sodium (p<0.001), calcium (p<0.001), high sensitivity Troponin I (p<0.001), and ferritin levels (p<0.001), proved statistically significant. Regarding demographic data, age was significantly linked to patients’ survival. Conclusion: Our data suggest that common initial laboratory findings of COVID-19 patients who seek for the first-time medical assistant regardless of comorbidities and time from onset of symptoms can give clues to the patient outcome. Age is also important for patients’ survival. Especially in a Primary Health Care Setting, common blood parameters like WBC count, neutrophil and lymphocyte percentage, platelet count, glucose, urea, creatinine, SGOT, CK, LDH, GGT, sodium, calcium, high sensitivity Troponin I, and ferritin levels, could be really helpful to predict disease severity.