RESUMO
The number of foreign residents and tourists in Japan has been dramatically increasing in recent years. Despite the fact that Japan is prone to natural disasters, with each climate-related event turning into an emergency such as with record rainfalls, floods and mudslides almost every year, non-Japanese communication infrastructure and everyday disaster drills for foreigners have received little attention. This study aims to understand how a resilient communication ecosystem forms in various disaster contexts involving foreigners. Within a framework of information ecology we try to get an overview of the communication ecosystem in literature and outline its structure and trends in social media use. Our empirical case study uses Twitter API and R programming software to extract and analyze tweets in English during Typhoon 19 (Hagibis) in October 2019. It reveals that many information sources transmit warnings and evacuation orders through social media but do not convey a sense of locality and precise instructions on how to act. For future disaster preparedness, we argue that the municipal government, as a responsible agent, should (1) make available instructional information in foreign languages on social media, (2) transfer such information through collaboration with transmitters, and (3) examine the use of local hashtags in social media to strengthen non-Japanese speaker's capacity to adapt.
RESUMO
Enterovirus and human parechovirus (HPeV) are RNA viruses belonging to the family Picornaviridae that frequently infect infants. These infections show a wide variety of clinical manifestations, from mild to severe. However, there are no known early clinical markers for diagnosis and prediction of disease severity. The aim of this study was to examine the clinical utility of urinary beta 2-microglobulin (ß2MG) for the early detection and prognosis of infantile enterovirus and HPeV infections.This retrospective study included 108 full-term infants younger than 60 days of age, including 15 with enterovirus or HPeV-3 (enterovirus/HPeV-3), 22 with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and 24 with bacterial infections. Laboratory data and clinical characteristics were compared among these 3 groups. Of the 15 patients with enterovirus/HPeV-3, 6 were treated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG subgroup) because of severe clinical conditions.Urinary ß2MG to creatinine ratio (ß2MG/Cr) was significantly higher in the enterovirus/HPeV-3 group compared to bacterial and RSV infection groups (both Pâ<â.001). In the enterovirus/HPeV-3 group, mean peak urinary ß2MG/Cr was observed on day 1 or 2. Urinary ß2MG/Cr values were significantly higher in the IVIG subgroup than the non-IVIG subgroup (Pâ<â.001).Increased urinary ß2MG/Cr in early-stage infection may be a useful clinical marker for the detection and prediction of infantile enterovirus and HPeV infection severity.
