Zhisong Zhang, K. Sun, Chonnakarn Jatchavala
et al.
Background: In psychiatry, stigma is an attitude of disapproval towards people with mental illnesses. Psychiatric disorders are common in Asia but some Asians receive inadequate treatment. Previous review found that Asians with mental illness were perceived to be dangerous and aggressive. There is a need for renewed efforts to understand stigma and strategies which can effectively reduce stigma in specific Asian societies. The objective of this systematic review was to provide an up-to-date overview of existing research and status on stigma experienced by psychiatric patients and anti-stigma campaigns in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Korea, and Thailand. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in the following databases, including PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, Web of Science, and local databases. Studies published in English and the official language of included countries/territories were considered for inclusion in the systematic review. Any article on stigma related to any form of psychiatric illness in the six Asian societies was included. Results: One hundred and twenty-three articles were included for this systematic review. This review has six major findings. Firstly, Asians with mental illnesses were considered as dangerous and aggressive, especially patients suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; second, psychiatric illnesses in Asian societies were less socially-acceptable and were viewed as being personal weaknesses; third, stigma experienced by family members was pervasive and this is known as family stigma; fourth, this systemic review reported more initiatives to handle stigma in Asian societies than a decade ago; fifth, there have been initiatives to treat psychiatric patients in the community; and sixth, the role of supernatural and religious approaches to psychiatric illness was not prevailing. Conclusion: This systematic review provides an overview of the available scientific evidence that points to areas of needed intervention to reduce and ultimately eliminate inequities in mental health in Asia.
Yuki Morimoto, Kiyoshi Shikino, Yukihiro Nomura
et al.
BackgroundThe Japanese National Medical Licensing Examination (NMLE) is mandatory for all medical graduates seeking to become licensed physicians in Japan. Given the cultural emphasis on summative assessment, the NMLE has had a significant impact on Japanese medical education. Although the NMLE Content Guidelines have been revised approximately every five years over the last 2 decades, objective literature analyzing how the examination itself has evolved is absent.
ObjectiveTo provide a holistic view of the trends of the actual examination over time, this study used a combined rule-based and data-driven approach. We primarily focused on classifying the items according to the perspectives outlined in the NMLE Content Guidelines, complementing this approach with a natural language processing technique called topic modeling to identify latent topics.
MethodsWe collected publicly available NMLE data for 2001-2024. Six examination iterations (2880 items) were manually classified from 3 perspectives (level, content, and taxonomy) based on pre-established rules derived from the guidelines. Temporal trends within each classification were evaluated using the Cochran-Armitage test. Additionally, we conducted topic modeling for all 24 examination iterations (11,540 items) using the bidirectional encoder representations from transformers–based topic modeling framework. Temporal trends were traced using linear regression models of topic frequencies to identify topics growing in prominence.
ResultsIn the level classification, the proportion of items addressing common or emergent diseases increased from 60% (115/193) to 76% (111/147; P<.001). In the content classification, the proportion of items assessing knowledge of pathophysiology decreased from 52% (237/459) to 33% (98/293; P<.001), whereas the proportion assessing practical knowledge of primary emergency care increased from 21% (95/459) to 29% (84/293; P<.001). In the taxonomy classification, the proportion of items that could be answered solely through simple recall of knowledge decreased from 51% (279/550) to 30% (118/400; P<.001), while the proportion assessing advanced analytical skills, such as interpreting and evaluating the meaning of each answer choice according to the given context, increased from 4% (21/550) to 19% (75/400; P<.001). Topic modeling identified 25 distinct topics, of which 10 exhibited an increasing trend. Non–organ-specific topics with notable increases included “comprehensive clinical items,” “accountability in medical practice and patients’ rights,” “care, daily living support, and community health care,” and “infection control and safety management in basic clinical procedures.”
ConclusionsThis study identified significant shifts in the Japanese NMLE over the past 2 decades, suggesting that Japanese undergraduate medical education is evolving to place greater importance on practical problem-solving abilities than on rote memorization. This study also identified latent topics that showed increased prominence, possibly reflecting underlying social conditions.
This report offers a brief reflection on a graduate student forum held under the theme “The Institutions and Ethics of Care and Self-Care.” The presentations explored how contemporary Japanese literature engages with caregiving, emotion, and relationality through various narrative voices and critical perspectives.
Background Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP), attributable to Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP), represents a predominant form of community-acquired pneumonia in pediatric populations, thereby posing a significant threat to pediatric health. Given the burgeoning volume of research literature associated with pediatric MPP in recent years, it becomes imperative to undertake a bibliometric analysis aimed at delineating the current research landscape and emerging trends, thereby furnishing a framework for subsequent investigations. Methods A comprehensive literature search targeting pediatric MPP was conducted in the Web of Science Core Collection. After the removal of duplicate entries through Endnote software, the remaining articles were subject to scientometric analysis via Citespace software, VOSviewer software and R language, focusing on variables such as publication volume, contributing nations, institutions and authors, references and keywords. Results A total of 1,729 articles pertinent to pediatric MPP were included in the analysis. China and the United States emerged as the nations with the highest publication output. Italian scholar Susanna Esposito and Japanese scholar Kazunobu Ouchi were the most influential authors in the domain of pediatric MPP. Highly-cited articles primarily focused on the epidemiological investigation of pediatric MPP, the clinical characteristics and treatment of macrolide-resistant MPP, and biomarkers for refractory Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (RMPP). From the corpus of 1,729 articles, 636 keywords were extracted and categorized into ten clusters: Cluster #0 centered on molecular-level typing of macrolide-resistant strains; Cluster #1 focused on lower respiratory tract co-infections; Clusters #2 and #6 emphasized other respiratory ailments caused by MP; Cluster #3 involved biomarkers and treatment of RMPP; Clusters #4 and #9 pertained to extrapulmonary complications of MPP, Clusters #5 and #7 addressed etiological diagnosis of MPP, and Cluster #8 explored pathogenic mechanisms. Conclusions The past few years have witnessed extensive attention directed towards pediatric MPP. Research in pediatric MPP principally revolves around diagnostic techniques for MP, macrolide resistance, complications of MPP, treatment and diagnosis of RMPP, and elucidation of pathogenic mechanisms. The present study provides pediatric clinicians and researchers with the research status and focal points in this field, thereby guiding the orientation of future research endeavors.
The article focuses on the concept of foodscape, which is relatively new to the Russian academic community. In the theoretical and methodological part of the work, the authors deconstruct the term “foodscape,” identify the epistemological foundations and the conceptual roots of the concept. For the first time in world science, the concept of foodscape is compared with related semantic complexes in accordance with the theory of the “culinary triangle,” which was developed by C. Levi-Strauss. Using the method of scientific visualization and comparative analysis, a model of the taxonomic hierarchy of the foodscape is constructed, which symbolizes the symbiotic relationship between nature and culture, registered with the help of an innovative author’s classification – at the global, national, and local levels. The practical part of the article is devoted to the study of the transformation process of the foodscape of Japan, characterized by balancing between gastronomy and gastro-anomie. It is proved that, along with the import of foreign food products, which undermined the food self-sufficiency of the state, the patterns of the Euro-American civilization were imported, which modified the model of social behavior, ingrained eating habits, and age-old culinary foundations of Japanese society. As empirical evidence, the authors present and analyze successful marketing strategies of multinational corporations that focus on monetization of cultural and household rituals, commodification of traditions, and consumerization of ancient religious rituals. In addition, the authors reveal the powerful protectionist potential of the washoku as traditional food culture of Japan. It has been found that the washoku’s ideological module was flexibly converted by the modern Japanese government, both for domestic and foreign policy of the state. Nowadays, washoku is the institutional foundation for a specialized legislative act regulating the procedure of Re-McDonaldization of the population. Along with this, washoku is also an effective tool of soft gastronomic power and gastrodiplomacy, creating a charming image of Japan in the eye of the beholder (the international political community). In conclusion, the authors diagnose the dialectical nature of the process of Kawaii-fication of Japan’s foodscape, characterized by the charm of infantilism with a grain of salt – radical escapism and social maladjustment.
Introduction Participation in lung cancer screening (LCS) is lower in populations with the highest burden of lung cancer risk (through the social patterning of smoking behavior) and lowest levels of health care utilization (through structurally inaccessible care) leading to a widening of health inequities. Methods We conducted a scoping review using the Arksey and O’Malley methodological framework to inform equitable access to LCS by illuminating knowledge and implementation gaps in interventions designed to increase the uptake of LCS. We comprehensively searched for LCS interventions (Ovid Medline, Excerpta Medica database, the Cochrane Library, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Scopus from 2000 to June 22, 2021) and included peer-reviewed articles and gray literature published in the English language that describe an intervention designed to increase the uptake of LCS, charted data using our previously published tool and conduced a health equity analysis to determine the intended-unintended and positive-negative outcomes of the interventions for populations experiencing the greatest inequities. Results Our search yielded 3572 peer-reviewed articles and 54,292 pieces of gray literature. Ultimately, we included 35 peer-reviewed articles and one gray literature. The interventions occurred in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Italy, focusing on shared decision-making, the use of electronic health records as reminders, patient navigation, community-based campaigns, and mobile computed tomography scanners. We developed an equity-oriented LCS framework and mapped the dimensions and outcomes of the interventions on access to LCS on the basis of approachability, acceptability, availability, affordability, and appropriateness of the intervention. No intervention was mapped across all five dimensions. Most notably, knowledge and implementation gaps were identified in dimensions of acceptability, availability, and affordability. Conclusions Interventions that were most effective in improving access to LCS targeted priority populations, raised community-level awareness, tailored materials for sociocultural acceptability, did not depend on prior patient engagement/registration with the health care system, proactively considered costs related to participation, and enhanced utilization through informed decision-making.
This scoping review explores the ethical challenges of using ChatGPT in higher education. By reviewing recent academic articles in English, Chinese, and Japanese, we aimed to provide a deep dive review and identify gaps in the literature. Drawing on Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) scoping review framework, we defined search terms and identified relevant publications from four databases in the three target languages. The research results showed that the majority of the papers were discussion papers, but there was some early empirical work. The ethical issues highlighted in these works mainly concern academic integrity, assessment issues, and data protection. Given the rapid deployment of generative artificial intelligence, it is imperative for educators to conduct more empirical studies to develop sound ethical policies for its use.
This research examines how Kei Ishiyama’s Grimms Manga series create a transcultural product by retelling selected Grimm brothers’ fairy tales, and by incorporating Japanese visual language. Ishiyama’s Grimms Manga has its own transcultural beginning, and its inception began when Ishiyama was temporarily living in Germany and encountered the Tokyopop publisher of Germany. Ishiyama Grimms’ fairy tales retellings use various modes with contemporary visual styles, such as commercialized and domesticated notions of exaggerated cuteness, which are very common in manga targeting young female readers. Due to the success of Grimms Manga Volume 1 (2007) and Volume 2 (2008), a special volume titled Grimms Manga Sonderband (2011) was published, which contains retellings from German and Japanese manga artists. These retellings not only celebrate the success of Ishiyama but reflect the important influence of German literature to display a product of a contact zone and an artifact of transculturation.
Despite the decades that have passed since the end of World War II, historians and researchers from other academic fields remain interested in the activities of a number of organizations and military units of the Japanese army and navy, engaged, during the pre-war and war periods, in the development of weapons of mass destruction, unique weapons, as well as means of their delivery. At the same time, against the background of the relatively well-studied circumstances of the activities of the infamous Units 731 and 100, which produced and tested bacteriological and other weapons in the territory of Manchuria, the data on the activities of the Army Military Research Institute № 9, located in the Tokyo suburb of Kawasaki, remain almost completely unknown to Russian researchers.In the Japanese- and English-language historical literature, the unit is known as the “Noborito Laboratory,” deriving the name from the area where the institute was located. For the first time in the Russian-language literature, this work presents the history of the establishment and activities of this top-secret division of the Japanese Imperial Army, a general outline of its structure and activities, which included experiments and attempts to create bacteriological weapons, production of counterfeit money and documents, various weapons of mass destruction, including bacteriological ones as well as weapons based on the use of microwave radiation, secret espionage and electronic equipment, poisons, the historically first intercontinental means of delivering damaging substances, etc.The problem of the post-war fate of the liquidated Research Institute № 9 and the appearance of some of its traces in Japan after 1945 are also touched upon. The research is based on materials declassified in Japan and published by the Defunct Imperial Japanese Army Noborito Laboratory Museum for Education in Peace, as well as on the materials of foreign press.
he article analyzes the structure and features of the retail trade sector in Japan, the current trends in the consumer behavior of the Japanese, which became noticeable at the end of the 20th century and especially after the global financial and economic crisis of 2008–2010 and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on empirical material, the author identifies the main directions of transformation of strategies of Japanese trade corporations under the conditions of economic instability and the formation of a new consumption model.
Trade as a sphere of entrepreneurial activity is represented in Japan by various types of trading enterprises and companies and corporate groups of very different sizes and organizational and legal status. The market leaders are universal trading companies (sogo shosha) and large network companies (Seven & I Holdings, Aeon, Fast Retailing, etc.), which finance and organize not only the circulation, but also the production of products (from the development and purchase of raw materials to production and processing, logistics, sales, and services). The groups include numerous affiliated companies-retail operators.
The characteristic features of the Japanese consumer have traditionally been the willingness to pay for quality, convenience, and service, a relatively low level of interest in cheaper goods, preference for the format of «physical» purchases, as well as the desire to buy expensive, exclusive things of luxury brands, which for many has become a sign of financial success and social status.
Among the most important modern factors affecting the scale and structure of consumer demand in Japan are the desire to reduce one’s expenses in the face of slowing economic growth and stagnating incomes, increase in the level of environmental awareness, changing lifestyle and leisure patterns. The most important factor determining the image of the modern Japanese consumer was the entry into the labor and consumption market of generations Y and Z, who increasingly rely not on owning, but on using things, which acts as a factor in reducing the scale of the consumer market.
In these conditions, trading companies modernize their strategies, including by entering into partnerships with national and foreign corporations in order to adapt to changing conditions and maintain competitiveness through modernization, diversification, and digitalization of business, reducing transaction costs based on the synergetic effect.
In the covid 19 pandemic era, education in Indonesia is appliying an online learning system. The use of technology and computer-based applications is inevitable. Teachers are faced with the use of applications such as Zoom, G Classroom, Screenomatic, Canva, Prezi, and others. The use of these applications is constructive in the knowledge transfer process. However, the use of supporting media in online learning also plays an important role. Because in practice, the use of learning media will greatly help the learning process. One of them is by using video media. Video is a multimedia-based learning media. In the video, learners can listen to the material through audio-visual which can help optimize the function of the five senses and make it easier for learners to understand the content of the material presented. This research will use videos from a Youtube channel. One course that requires videos as learning media is Japanese for Business, which is given to 3rd year 6th-semester students for 4 meetings with various themes. In this course, students are taught Japanese conversation for business. The difficulties faced in online learning are the lack of time for practice and limited language use situations. Moreover, the pandemic period has also affected the company's work system, so it is necessary to deliver material about the work system. Such as presentations and meetings through zoom as well as other situations that might occur in the online work system. Based on this background, it can be concluded that the purpose of this study is to find out how teaching in Japanese for Business course through the use of video media in the pandemic era. The method used is a mixed method.
This study discusses the dominance of the power on the existence of crossplayer in the private-public space of cyberspace. The subjects of this study were four respondents consisting of 2 female to male (F2M) crossplayers and 2 male to female (M2F) crossplayers. This study uses a critical discourse analysis approach to reveal cultural phenomena using Sartre's concept of Being and Foucault's concept of the power of discourse. The results of this study indicate that crossplay in Indonesia is not an easy thing to do. The rejection from the community is quite large because of the negative stigma for cross-dressed people. Crossplay actors have to disguise their identities on social media and operate clandestinely, as a form of their negotiation against the power of the majority discourse who rejects their existence. They also form a community so that they still have a place to actualize their hobby. The creation of a community is also a protective area for various crossplay activities from the power of the majority discourse. Their activities on social media are still carried out in these conditioned public spaces, because the followers are people who like Japanese culture who support crossplay discourse.
A review of "Studying Japan: Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods" edited by Nora Kottmann and Cornelia Reiher, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft (Baden-Baden, Germany), 2020.
This study aims to determine the implementation and improvement of learning outcomes in the virtual classroom method through Project Based Learning (PBL) method on learning Japanese grammar. The application of PBL in virtual classrooms is an alternative for active learning. Virtual classroom is one form of learning space that applies the use of current technology to shorten and eliminate distance and space, where learning is able to be carried out through social media. PBL itself emphasizes the learner’s ability to apply learning into daily life through certain projects. This study uses a quasi-experimental method. The sample or data source of this research was students in semester 3 of the Japanese Language Education Study Program at one of the private universities in Jakarta. Based on the Mann Whitney test using SPSS 25, the sig value was 0.001. Because the value of sig = 0,000 <0.005, there is a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test values between before and after the application of the virtual classroom method through PBL. Based on the results of the gain in pre-test and post-test values, the result was 17%. So it can be concluded that PBL implementation in the virtual classroom cannot increase the value of learning outcomes in learning Japanese grammar.
This essay is a review of the monograph 'The Anime Ecology: A Genealogy of Television, Animation, and Game Media' by Thomas Lamarre (University of Minnesota Press, 2018).
Japanese director Tsutomu Mizushima’s 2012 animated television series, Another, presents a narrative whereby one social group’s refusal to accept an unexpected death triggers an intergenerational curse. This paper takes a close reading of Mizushima’s anime, showing how its narrative contends that the present—and by default the future—is not self-sufficient but instead relies upon understandings of the past. The analysis uses the lens of Jacques Derrida’s theory of hauntology, which opens up a space for discursive accounts of the presence of the past in the present and its influence on the future, and therefore serves as a powerful tool for interrogating questions of war memory. I demonstrate that Another exemplifies the use of anime as a critical medium, showing how it uses allegory to explore the motivations and consequences of Japan’s lack of a dominant historical narrative about the war and the resulting intergenerational effects of this historical consciousness problem. As Japan continues to debate remilitarisation and the fate of Article 9 in its constitution, it seems particularly apt to revisit Mizushima’s Another, which illustrates the dangers of ignoring the spectre of history.