Mie Prefectural Education Center

BackgroundThe post-discharge period following psychiatric hospitalization is a high-risk period for suicide attempts. This risk is substantially higher for patients admitted for suicidal behavior. Despite the urgent need for effective countermeasures, evidence-based interventions specifically designed to prevent suicide reattempts in this high-risk population remain limited. Although assertive case management is recognized as an effective intervention, its feasibility, safety, and efficacy for patients in psychiatric hospitals remain uninvestigated. The ACTION-JP study aims to evaluate the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of such an intervention adapted for patients in Japan admitted to psychiatric hospitals following a suicide attempt.MethodsThe ACTION-JP study is a multicenter, single-arm clinical trial. A total of 220 adult patients admitted to participating psychiatric hospitals following a suicide attempt will be enrolled. The intervention comprises two main components: a psychoeducation program conducted during hospitalization and an 18-month structured assertive case management follow-up. The primary outcome is the change from baseline in the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale total score at the 6-month follow-up. Secondary outcomes include the incidence of suicide reattempts and self-harm, as well as changes in Beck Depression Inventory-II and Global Assessment of Functioning Scale scores.DiscussionThis study protocol describes the essential first step in developing an evidence-based suicide prevention strategy for psychiatric inpatients. This study will provide important data on the intervention’s feasibility, safety, and efficacy. The findings are expected to offer important insights into the potential effectiveness of assertive case management for reducing suicide risk post-discharge. The successful implementation of this study will provide the necessary basis for designing a future large-scale randomized controlled trial that may help to establish a new standard of care in psychiatric hospitals.Trial registrationThis trial was registered on the University Hospital Medical Information Network clinical trials registry: UMIN000057009 (Date of registration: April 1, 2025) and the Japan Registry for Clinical Trials: jRCT1010250041 (Date of registration: October 20, 2025).Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12888-025-07554-0.

Mie Prefectural Mental Care Center is a public psychiatric hospital that has 400 beds and 250 outpatients a day. The main catchment area is Tsu City (population: 290,000). Our hospital started early intervention in Aug 2008, and opened the Youth Mental Support Center MIE (YMSC MIE) in Oct 2008. This article reports an early intervention trial in a regional area of Japan. The mission of YMSC MIE is the education, consultation, staff training, and intervention for mental health problems and early psychosis of youths. In Jul 2009, we set up the Youth Assist Clinic (YAC) to support youths with mental health problems and early psychoses. Our activities consist of school-based, community-based, and hospital-based approaches. Specific programs are as follows: 1) School-based approaches: Outreach consultation to school. Mental health lessens. Creating mental health textbooks. Education for parents and teachers. 2) Community-based approaches: To enlighten primary physicians and mental clinic psychiatrists about the importance of early psychosis. To survey their concerns regarding early psychosis. Promoting awareness of community staff and the general public. 3) Hospital-based approaches: YAC. Case manager system. Family meetings for the family including the young with mental disorders. Peer group. Looking back over our 3-year trials, especially in school and the community, we find several problems, as follows: 1) Lack of consultation skills of medical staff outside the hospital. 2) Limiting number of schools which have mental support system. 3) Support for school attendance and learning. 4) Lack of concern about early psychosis of primary physicians and mental clinic psychiatrists. 5) Staff training for early intervention. We are now getting close to improving these issues.

Bitterling fishes deposit their eggs on the gills of living mussels using a long ovipositor. We examined whether ovipositor length (OL) and egg shape correlated with differences in host mussel species in the family Unionidae among populations of the tabira bitterling (Acheilognathus tabira) in Japan. Bitterling populations that use mussels in the sub-family Anodontinae possessed longer ovipositors and more elongated eggs than those using mussels of Unioninae, as expected from the difference in host size between the sub-families (anodontine mussels are larger than unionine mussels). Based on a robust phylogeny of A. tabira populations, we demonstrated that the evolution of both OL and egg shape were correlated with host differences, but not with each other, suggesting that these traits have been selected for independently. Our study demonstrates how adaptive traits for brood parasitism may diverge with host shift due to different host availability and/or interspecific competition for hosts.

Abstract Intensive field observations as well as monitoring of discharge, water quality, and soil erosion have been conducted in forest plantations in order to identify the effects of forest cover and management practices on runoff generation, sediment transport, and downstream environmental issues. Five experimental catchments, each with rather uniform lithology, were established in both managed and unmanaged plantations of Japanese cypress and cedar, as well as broadleaf forests. Field monitoring was conducted from sub‐plots (e.g. splash cups) to small hillslope plots (0·5 × 2 m) to large hillslope‐scale plots to first order streams (0·1–4 ha) and finally to larger catchments (>4 ha) in a nested structure. Remote sensing techniques were employed to identify broad scale forest stand and soil surface conditions. As part of this integrated study, these field‐based monitoring and remote sensing techniques provide information for modelling runoff generation and developing adaptive management schemes with respect to catchment‐scale water resources. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract BACKGROUND: The relationships between possible physiological properties of insoluble fibre and the viscosity of digesta are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of insoluble fibres with different water‐holding capacity, swelling, oil‐holding capacity and cation exchange capacity on gastric, small intestinal and caecal contents in rats fed a semi‐purified diet containing either no fibre (control), 50 g kg−1 tossa jute fibre or 50 g kg−1 shiitake fibre.RESULTS: The water‐holding capacity, swelling, oil‐holding capacity and cation exchange capacity of insoluble fibres of tossa jute were higher than those of shiitake (P < 0.001). The order of the viscosities of digesta was control group < shiitake fibre group < tossa jute fibre group in gastric, small intestinal and caecal contents (P < 0.05). The digesta viscosity at a shear rate of 40 s−1 was strongly correlated with the free water content of digesta (r = − 0.89; P < 0.01). The free water content of digesta depended on the water‐holding capacity of insoluble fibres represented as a linear function with negative slope (P < 0.001).CONCLUSION: The viscosity of digesta depends on the free water content, and this is reduced by fibre that holds water and can swell. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry

Effects of NH3 concentration in sea water and pH of sea water on the motility of spermatozoa obtained from testes were examined in the Japanese pearl oyster Percent motility at 30 s after dilution increased with increasing NH3 concentration in sea water from 0.75–2.0 mM. When spermatozoa were diluted with sea water containing 0.75 mM NH3, which is widely used as the insemination fluid in the hatchery of this species, the percent motility increased with time elapsed after dilution, and peaked at 5 min. For spermatozoa diluted with sea water containing 2.0 mM NH3, the percent motility increased rapidly and peaked at 30 s. The pH of sea water increased with increasing NH3 concentration from 8.2 (0 mM NH3) to 9.9 (5.0 mM NH3). When spermatozoa were diluted with artificial sea water at various pH (buffered without NH3 at 6.0–10.0), only spermatozoa diluted with artificial sea water of pH 10.0 were motile, and the percent was considerably lower than those in ammonical sea water. These results indicate that sea water containing 2.0 mM NH3 is a suitable solution for evaluating sperm motility, and that NH3 and/or ammonium ions may activate sperm motility in this species.