Japan Lutheran College

Abstract This study explores the determinants influencing collaboration between Community Comprehensive Support Centers (CCSCs) and Domestic Violence (DV) support agencies in addressing cases of older Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in Japan. Utilizing data from a national survey conducted in November 2022, responses from 1,472 Community Social Workers (CSWs) out of 3,563 randomly selected CCSCs were analyzed. The study found that 5.8% of respondents frequently consulted with DV support organizations, 25.9% occasionally, 24.3% almost never, and 44.0% never at all. Logistic regression analysis, using gender, years of support experience, existence of a DV manual, number of husband-to-wife violence cases, and participation in training as independent variables, revealed that the presence of a domestic violence manual was the most significant factor influencing collaboration. CCSCs with a domestic violence manual were significantly more likely to consult DV support organizations (odds ratio = 2.158, 95% confidence interval: 1.425-3.266). These findings emphasize the importance of developing manuals on responding to domestic violence within CCSCs to facilitate collaboration with DV support agencies. This collaborative approach presents a viable option to enhance support mechanisms for older victims of intimate partner violence, indicating the potential impact of strategic interventions in addressing this critical societal issue.

Abstract After a brief introduction on history of activities of Japan Academy for the Prevention of Elder Abuse for the past 20 years, this study presents trends in number of elder abuse cases that were reported and substantiated as “elder abuse”, and trends in reporters and types of abuse in both institutional and domestic settings by using the nationwide data collected by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare each year since the Act on the Prevention of Elder Abuse was enacted in 2006. The number of elder abuse cases in 2022 increased 5.3% compared to that in 2021 in domestic settings, while about 17% of increase for institutional settings. And the data in 2022 showed only 7.4% of the municipalities had implemented “leadership trainings” to promote actions and measures to prevent elder abuse in institutions and agencies that provide nursing care services; accordingly, it is not surprising, without leaders, the number of elder abuse cases reported and substantiated as elder abuse increased. Moreover, although there was no amendment of the Act on the Prevention of Elder Abuse, we discuss the most recent policy amendment on “Responses to Elder Abuse and Support for Caregivers in Municipalities and Prefectures”, so-called National Manual, which was enacted in April 2023 for the first time in 5 years. This policy change required a collaboration between prefectures and municipalities to develop infrastructure to prevent elder abuse. Finally, we make recommendations for solving issues identified during the past 20 years.

Unsustainable agricultural development has an impact on land damage, decreased water quality, increased critical land and it is hoped that agriculture will transform towards sustainable agriculture. Sustainable agriculture is development that considers economic, ecological and social dimensions, so that agricultural development can be enjoyed by current and future generations. Sustainable agricultural development requires human resources as agents of change. The existence of Vocational High Schools in agriculture as a subsystem of national education is expected to produce graduates who have competence in the agricultural sector. Research on the process of conveying sustainable agribusiness messages through the role of Vocational High School graduates uses a phenomenological approach to understand the experiences of research subjects. The research subjects were graduates of Vocational High Schools who worked as farmers and extension workers with the sampling technique using snowball sampling by examining the role of graduates of Vocational High Schools as adopter farmers and distributors, non-adopter farmers, extension workers and extension officers who own farming businesses due to the success of the adoption process and Diffusion is influenced by information sources and message delivery methods. The results of the study show that the learning-by-doing method of information sources is considered effective in the process of adoption and diffusion of sustainable agribusiness.

PurposeWe developed preference weights of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for Carers (ASCOT-Carer) in Japan.MethodsWe used best–worst scaling (BWS) and composite time trade-off (cTTO) to determine the preference weights for ASCOT-Carer states in the general population. TTO values were applied to convert the BWS scores to utilities. The sample number was approximately 1000 for the BWS survey and 200 for the TTO survey. Whereas face-to-face surveys by computer-assisted interviewing were adopted for the TTO tasks, a web-based survey was used for the BWS tasks. In the BWS tasks, the ASCOT-Carer states were presented, and the “best,” “worst,” “second best,” and “second worst” domains in a profile were selected. A mixed logit model was applied to the BWS data.ResultsThe respondents’ background was similar to that of the general population, although the number of people in the age and sex categories was equal. The preference weights for calculating the utilities of the ASCOT-Carer states were estimated. The estimated utilities of the ASCOT-Carer states were distributed between 1 and 0.02. All preference weights were consistent. The item with the highest preference weight was level 1 in the “space and time to be yourself.” The least preferred item was level 4 in the “space and time to be yourself” and “control over daily life” domains.ConclusionWe established Japanese preference weights for ASCOT-Carer states, the first weights of an Asian country. The estimated utilities can contribute to the measurement of caregivers’ social care-related QoL and perform of cost-effectiveness analyses.

慢性痛は，発症率の高さ，長期的治療の必要性から健康上の重大な問題といえる。その発症，維持には生物・心理学的メカニズムの複合的な関与が示唆されており，幾つかの心理学的介入による有効性が報告されつつある。これらのアプローチは痛みそのものを対象としたものから痛みに関する認知，思考を扱うものまで多岐にわたるが，マインドフルネス，催眠療法，EMDR，運動療法といった心理・身体的介入には，痛みを回避するのではなく，そこに「能動的に向き合う」という共通項を見出すことができよう。そこで本シンポジウムでは，不快な身体の痛みに対する態度と慢性痛の知覚，認知プロセスの関連性を多角的に検討する。話題提供の先生方は上述のアプローチによる痛みの介入を専門とされており，それぞれの立場から理論と効果をご紹介いただく。これらの共通点，相異点からみえる慢性痛治療の中核と今後の方向性について，指定討論者の先生方とともに議論を行う。

Abstract Gut microbial dysbiosis have been linked to frailty in elderly, yet the presence of fungal communities and their possible association with host health are little understood. This study attempts to identify gut microbial fungal associations with the progression of atherogenic dyslipidemia in a population of older adults by investigating the interplay between dietary intake, gut mycobiome composition, plasma and fecal metabolome and anthropometric/body-composition measurements of 99 Danes aged 65 to 81 (69.57 ± 3.64) years. The gut mycobiome composition were determined by high-throughput sequencing of internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) gene amplicons, while the plasma and fecal metabolome was determined by GC-MS. The gut microbiome of the subjects investigated is home to three main eukaryotic phyla, namely Ascomyco-ta, Basidiomycota and Zygomycota, with generaPenicillium, Candida, andAspergillusbeing particularly common. Hypertriglyceridemia was associated with fewer observed fungal species, and Bray-Curtis dissimilarity matrix-based analysis showed significant (p< 0.05) clustering according to fasting levels of circulating plasma triglycerides (Tg) and very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) cholesterol fasting levels, respectively. Higher levels of Tg and VLDL cholesterol significantly associates with increased relative abundance of genusPenicillium, andSaccha:ramyceslikely mediated by a higher dietary fatty acids intake (p< 0.05), andSac-charomyces, Debaryomyces, Candida, AgaricusandStarmerellawere moderately associated with SCF As groups. Collectively, these findings suggest that gut mycobiome dysbiosis on older adults is associated with hypertriglyceridemia, a known risk factor for development of cardiovascular disease.

In this paper, we have used a technique , when a weak link is created between two systems which have undergone some type of gauge symmetry breaking. In fact the Josephson effect has been observed in superfluid .Bose condensate atomic gases is generally expected. A system whose gauge symmetry has been spontaneously broken can be described by order parameter that behaves in much respect like a macroscopic function)(rΨ. For Bose Einstein Condensates of dilute alkali gases )(rΨis the wave function of the macroscopically occupied one atomic state