ART FESTIVALS AND RURAL REVITALIZATION: ORGANIZING THE OKU-NOTO TRIENNALE IN JAPAN

Organizing rural art festivals is considered an effective intervention in support of rural revitalization in the face of aging and population decline in Japan. Several studies have identified the impacts of art festivals on economic and social rural development internationally. Little research, however, has focused on the management process of such festivals. The objective of this paper is to identify and examine the management processes crucial to an arts festival’s success, especially in terms of preparation, organization and community outreach. We focus on the first edition of the Oku-Noto Triennale, which took place in Suzu City, a remote coastal area of rural Japan in 2017. The Triennale was held from September 3, 2017 to October 22, 2017 with 39 groups of artists. Data for this study was primarily obtained through qualitative interviews with Suzu’s City Office, the coordinator of theArt Front Gallery, a Tokyo-based art gallery, and community members involved in the festival. Our case study revealed thatseveral factors were found to be crucial to the festival’s success. The organizing team’s flexibility, for example, assigning additional municipalities’ employees to site operations, was pivotal. Experienced actors, such as outside professionals and residents with prior experience organizing previous projects, who could address and overcome the difficulties they faced during the preparation, also deserve mention. The festival also succeeded due to the involvement of residents. In total, 1,176 people were involved as registered supporters, and 434 residents were involved as local volunteers during the festival (counted in working-days). The organizing team worked hard to convey the underlying concept of the art festival to the local residents. By organizing the festival, the residents met and formed bonds with new people and also strengthened their ties with one another

Changes in drinking behavior among evacuees after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident:the Fukushima Health Management Survey

Introduction Traumatic experiences and disordered sleep are strongly associated with drinking problems. We examined the effects of experiencing the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent nuclear power plant accident, and of sleep problems, on behavioral changes observed in non-drinkers.Methods This study examined cross-sectional data from the Mental Health and Lifestyle Survey conducted among residents in restricted areas of Fukushima in 2012. Participants were 21,454 evacuees aged 20 years or older at the time of disaster. People who did not drink before the disaster but became drinkers afterwards were compared with the rest of the cohort. We analyzed the association between behavioral changes in non-drinkers and potentially predictive variables, using logistic regression.Results The behavioral change of non-drinkers becoming drinkers (n=2,148) was significantly related to being male (OR=1.93, 95% CI:1.74-2.15), being younger (21-49 yrs, OR=1.85, 95% CI: 1.60-2.13), having less educational attainment (up to high school graduate, OR=1.21, 95% CI:1.09-1.35), smoking (OR=1.22, 95% CI:1.08-1.38), losing family or relatives (OR=1.21, 95% CI:1.07-1.37), change in employment (OR=1.19, 95% CI:1.07-1.32), having severe sleep problems as measured by a Japanese version of the Athens Insomnia Scale (3-8, OR=1.45, 95% CI:1.30-1.62), and severity of traumatic symptoms as measured by the PTSD Checklist Stressor-Specific (PCL-S) score (<44, OR=1.33, 95% CI:1.17-1.51).Conclusion Having sleep problems and having more severe traumatic symptoms are significantly related to non-drinkers becoming drinkers

リアルタイムMRI動画日本語調音運動データベースの設計

National Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsWaseda UniversityNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsATR-PromotionsATR-PromotionsChiba Institute of TechnologyKonan UniversityTakushoku UniversityNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsWaseda UniversityWaseda UniversityPicolab会議名: 言語資源活用ワークショップ2020, 開催地: オンライン, 会期: 2020年9月8日−9日, 主催: 国立国語研究所 コーパス開発センターわれわれは、日本語に関する調音音声学的研究の新しいインフラ提供をめざして、調音運動データベースの構築を進めてきている。声道全体の形状変化を毎秒14 ないし25 フレームのリアルタイムMRI 動画として記録したデータが、現時点で東京方言16 名、近畿方言5名分収録済である。1 名あたりの発話量は25〜30 分である。データには個々の発話の開始時刻と終了時刻のタグが付与されており、他に発話内容と話者に関するメタデータを検索に利用できる

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target

An Empirical Application of the Linear Programming Model for Agricultural Land Use Planning through the Valuation of Negative Externalities Caused by Abandoning Farmland in Marginal Areas

Farmland abandonment has been a serious problem in marginal areas in Japan. One of the main disadvantages of farmland abandonment is the effects of negative externalities on the adjacent farmlands, such as increased insect damage, weed growth, and maintenance costs of common facilities. In this paper, an empirical application of a linear programming model is introduced, which can deal with unknown values of negative externalities caused by adjacent abandoned farmlands. The unit cost of externalities caused by farm abandonment is calculated through observed land use and farming practices. The optimized result is able to reproduce the observed land use pattern at a significant hitting ratio. By substituting calculated value into the model of current cropping plots, we can suggest the optimal land use plan for the limited labour input in the changing future. The farmland plots in the suggested land use plan are not scattered spatially, reflecting the effect of externalities

Farm size and Distance-to-Field in Scattered Rice Field Areas:with Integration of Plot and Farm Data

An empirical bid-rent model is applied with a multinomial logit (MNL) for analyses of rice production in Japan, which is characterized by cultivation by producers working with various farm sizes. By combining plot and farm databases, the distances to respective field plots from potential holders in different farm size classes are examined using the model. The impact of land resource scarcity on farm size is explained by interpreting the distance effect. Results clarify that field plots at a greater distance from a farm command less rent. Especially in steeper areas with scarce land resources, large farms have no advantage in bid-rent competition with smaller farms

Long-Term Development of Urban Agriculture: Resilience and Sustainability of Farmers Facing the Covid-19 Pandemic in Japan

The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has forced global food systems to face unprecedented uncertain shocks even in terms of human health. Urban agriculture is expected to be more resilient because of its short supply chain for urban people and diversified farming activities. However, the short-and long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on urban farms remain unclear. This study aims to reveal the conditions for farm resilience to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the relationship between short-term farm resilience and long-term farm development using data from a survey of 74 farms located in Tokyo. The results are as follows. First, more than half of the sample farms increased their farm sales during this period. This resilience can be called the “persistence” approach. Second, short-term farm resilience and other sustainable farm activities contributed to improving farmers’ intentions for long-term farm development and farmland preservation. Third, the most important resilience attributes were the direct marketing, entrepreneurship, and social networks of farmers. We discussed the necessity of building farmers’ transformative capabilities for a more resilient urban farming system. These results imply that support to enhance the short-term resilience of urban farms is worth more than the short-term profit of the farms

Working conditions and labor flexibility in non-family farms: weather-based labor management by Japanese paddy rice corporations

Improving working conditions in agriculture is of great concern throughout the world. Just as in other industries, many young farm workers prefer to work as salaried employees, which has brought attention to non-family farms as providers of employment opportunities. However, in the presence of a strong need to flexibly respond to weather, there is still difficulty regarding whether workplaces without overworking can exist. This study is based on in-depth surveys of non-family rice farms in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. Our findings suggest that even in non-family farms, holiday-setting is done flexibly to account for weather, and systems that allow for harvesting at appropriate times are in place. During the busy farming period, in joint-stock farms, where multiple farmers invest together, full-time employees work overtime. In contrast, in community farms, many community residents take turns for working, which allows work to be done on time. A closer analysis of work records shows that, in either organizational structure, specific members need to overwork. Reasons behind this include issues with sunk costs in the form of monthly wages, lack of skills among part-time employees, and the communication costs of coordinating with many part-time employees