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The bio-medical model of 'mental health' and 'mental illness' that relates to the relationship between wellbeing and distress informs psychopathology and dominates conceptualisation in many Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic (WEIRD) populations. This paper aims to critique the model, questioning the appropriateness of psychopathology as a conceptual framework when working as a Western trained clinician with populations such as in China, Japan, Asia, the Middle-East and Africa. The paper also considers the cultural appropriateness of western notions of psychopathology when working inter-culturally in relation to the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings, and the Review of the Implementation of the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student learning outcomes assessment examines whether programs cover the material stated in their learning goals, whether students are learning the material, and the impact on student retention, graduation, post-graduation outcomes, and institutional accreditation, with the aim of providing faculty with data that can be used to help programs evolve or improve. While there is a plethora of research regarding effective methods of assessment used in the United States, little has been written regarding cross-national comparisons of assessment methodologies. This paper examines the current state of assessment in several nations and regions, and draws parallels in practices across countries. A literature search using the term "outcomes assessment" yielded 228 articles, of which, only 35 described practices outside the United States. Generally, searches on the terms "outcomes assessment" and "global" tend to return studies of outcomes assessment of teaching about global issues as it is practiced in the United States, rather than results about outcomes assessment practices used in other countries.

Eleven theme articles focus on serving rural youth in the International Youth Year and describe vocational agricultural education in developing nations, new models for international agricultural education, and goals and objectives of the Association for International Agricultural Education. (SK)

This series of articles cites a variety of sources and synthesizes a number of studies on the working conditions and the welfare of workers from several countries. (SSH)

This article synthesises findings from two systematic reviews that examined evidence of the link between large-scale assessments (LSAs) and education policy in economically developing countries and in countries of the Asia-Pacific. Analyses summarise evidence of assessment characteristics and policy goals of LSAs that influence education policy, when LSAs are used in the policy-making cycle and types of education policies impacted, and factors that influence the use of LSAs in policy-making. Results show national assessments conducted at both primary and secondary school levels to have an impact on education policy. LSAs are used more often for monitoring education quality and equity purposes followed by accountability purposes. International assessments are more often used to leverage policy priorities than other assessment types. LSAs feature mainly at the monitoring and evaluation stage of the policy cycle. The education policies impacted by LSAs relate considerably more to curricular reforms and performance standards as well as assessment bodies and activities and far less to resource allocation and teaching and learning policies. Finally, whereas the quality of assessment programmes facilitate impact, financial constraints and uncertainty as well as weak assessment bodies hinder the impact of LSAs on education policy.

Private supplementary tutoring has long been a major phenomenon in parts of East Asia, including Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. In recent times it has grown dramatically in other parts of Asia and in Africa, Europe and North America. The factors underlying the growth of private tutoring vary, but in all settings it has major implications for learning and livelihood. Families with the necessary resources are able to secure not only greater quantities but also better qualities of private tutoring. Children receiving such tutoring are then able to perform better in school, and in the long run to improve their lifetime earnings. By contrast, children of low-income families who do not receive such benefits may not be able to keep up with their peers and may drop out of school at an earlier age. Tutoring also of course has a direct impact on the livelihoods of the tutors, providing employment and incomes for a range of professionals and amateurs of different age groups. The dynamics of inter-relationships are complex, and vary from one setting to another. This paper argues that private supplementary tutoring deserves much more attention from policy makers and researchers. (Contains 1 table.)

Pastureland used for livestock grazing is globally much bigger than arable land. This study investigates the pastureland use embedded in global supply chains by using multi-regional systems input-output anlysis, tracing embodied pastureland use from source of exploitation to sink of final consumption in the global economy. The world's pastureland resources is shown reallocated through the supply chain mainly to the four major economies: EU, the United States, China, and Japan. These four economies are responsible for driving more than half of the global pastureland exploitation. Major supply chains responsible for the global reallocation of pastureland use include the cattle supply chain from Other Asia & Pacific to the United States, China, and Japan, and the cattle supply chain from Africa to EU and the Middle East. This paper demonstrates the nature and scale of the global reallocation of pastureland resources through the supply chain, highlighting the fact that the global shift of pastureland use from nature-based to economic-based may exacerbate ecological inequity between world regions. It is proposed that future policies and regulations should encourage sustainability goals not only on a regional level but on a global scale, finding pathways to sustainable and equitable livestock production by inter-regional collaboration., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This review describes biologically active natural products isolated from Aphyllophorales, many of which are known as polypores. Polypores are a large group of terrestrial fungi of the phylum Basdiomycota (basidiomycetes), and they along with certain Ascomycota are a major source of pharmacologically active substances. There are about 25 000 species of basidiomycetes, of which about 500 are members of the Aphyllophorales, a polyphyletic group that contains the polypores. Many of these fungi have circumboreal distributions in North America, Europe, and Asia and broad distributions on all inhabited continents and Africa; only a small number of the most common species with the most obvious fruiting bodies (basidiocarps) have been evaluated for biological activity. An estimated 75% of polypore fungi that have been tested show strong antimicrobial activity, and these may constitute a good source for developing new antibiotics. Numerous compounds from these fungi also display antiviral, cytotoxic, and/or antineoplastic activities. Additional important components of this vast arsenal of compounds are polysaccharides derived from the fungal cell walls. These compounds have attracted significant attention in recent years because of their immunomodulatory activities, resulting in antitumor effects. These high molecular weight compounds, often called biological response modifiers (BRM), or immunopotentiators, prevent carcinogenesis, show direct anticancer effects, and prevent tumor metastasis. Some of the protein-bound polysaccharides from polypores and other basidiomycetes have found their way to the market in Japan as anticancer drugs. Finally, numerous compounds with cardiovascular, phytotoxic, immunomodulatory, analgesic, antidiabetic, antioxidant, insecticidal, and nematocidal activities, isolated from polypores, are also presented. In fact many of the fungi mentioned in this paper have long been used in herbal medicine, including polypores such as Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi or Ling Zhi), Laetiporus sulphureus (Chicken-of-the-Woods), Trametes versicolor (Yun Zhi), Grifola umbellata (Zhu Lin), Inonotus obliquus (Chaga), and Wolfiporia cocos (Hoelen).

"In this paper, we consider crossovers of demographic density distributions from...populations that have the same fertility and mortality rates. We focus on observed populations and their associated stationary and stable models, and on proportional distributions of persons, births, deaths and reproductive values.... Three different populations were selected to represent a range of demographic behavior. Those populations are Japan 1963, a low mortality, low fertility population; Togo 1961, a high mortality, high fertility population; and the United States 1919-1921, a population whose fertility and mortality are intermediate.", (excerpt)

This paper reviews recent new trends in population structure in the world and its major regions in order to access the determinants of those trends and explore issues regarding the recent and projected changes in the age structure of population and the relationships of those changes to social and economic development. In particular, the paper compares the change in age structure projected by the Population Division of the UN Secretariat in its most recent 3 series--namely, those completed in 1984, 1986, and 1988. By and large, the most recent UN assessment projects that a larger proportion of the world population will be aged 60 and over in 2000 and 2025 than was previously estimated. Those changes in projections can be observed for the world and for the more developed countries as a whole, and for the regions of Africa, Latin America, Northern America, East Asia, Europe, and Oceania. While the recommendations of the International Conference on Population called attention to the importance of changes in population structure, this paper recommends urgent government action in planning social programs for the aged because of the greater eminence of population aging in many settings. The case of Japan is used to illustrate the growing importance of increases in life expectancy as a determinant of age structure changes (in relation to fertility decline), a point that is reinforced through a cruder decomposition of UN estimates and projections for several European countries.