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Given their similar morphology and gene-flow histories, determining whether an unidentified cranium found in the Philippines is Japanese or Filipino presents a challenge. Two different analyses are undertaken. First, discriminant function (DF) analyses are applied to 295 crania using 22 measurements for distinguishing between: 1) males and females, 2) Japanese and Filipino males, and 3) Japanese and Filipino females, and 4) among four groups (Japanese males, Filipino males, Japanese females, and Filipino females). Second, a DF equation for distinguishing Japanese males and Filipino males using 173 crania and 29 measurements is introduced. In addition to being able to distinguish between Japanese and Filipino crania, this study found that seldom used cranial measurements such as simonic chord (least nasal breadth -WNB), inferior malar length (IML), and maximum malar length (XML) are influential for distinguishing between these two Asian groups. The predicted classification accuracy of DF equations from both analyses ranged from 82.0% to 93.6%. Sixty test crania for the first study and 40 for the second study maintains classification success rates between 82.0% and 93.3%. The DF equations reported in this study can be a useful initial screening tool for identifying Japanese war dead in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares student preconceptions and expectations of Japanese language learning from studies conducted in 1989 and 2004. Over the years, student interests and pedagogical approaches have changed. However, the changes do not reflect on the student preconceptions and expectations. They still believe in traditional approaches to language learning, and their instrumental motivation is still high. A total of 374 undergraduate students studying Japanese in a four-year college participated in this study. The participants responded to a questionnaire concerning the four areas of language learning: (1) difficulty, (2) nature, (3) strategies, and (4) motivation. In analyzing these findings, this study recommends that instructors impart the facts about Japanese language learning to their students and assess whether their own curriculums meet the students' needs. (Contains 16 tables.)

To consider the ecological restoration potential of plantations, we investigated the influence of stand age on naturally regenerated tree species diversity in the overstorey layer of Larix kaempferi (Lamb.) Carrière plantations in central Japan and compared the results with those of a naturally regenerated broadleaf forest (abandoned coppice). In aging plantations, although stand structure was more developed and tree species diversity tended to increase, species composition did not tend towards that observed in abandoned broadleaf coppice forests. The reasons appeared to be because few species were significantly and positively correlated with stand age, newly recruited species would not associate with abandoned coppice forests, and some of the tree species occurring in younger plantations would persist in older plantations. Changing in the species composition of the overstorey as stands age is therefore considered to be difficult, particularly since the species composition of naturally regenerated trees at an earlier stage of plantation development has a marked effect on the species composition later on. If the species composition of the studied plantations is to be altered to more closely reflect that of naturally regenerated forests in the region, then it may be necessary to implement supplementary management measures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is classified into several types. However, syndromes that do not belong to these typical types of PPA have been reported, such as cases where only progressive apraxia of speech (AOS) is present in the early stages of the disease. Moreover, there have been a few case reports of patients with progressive word deafness complicated with logoclonia as a speech disorder. Herein, we report a case of degenerative disease with phonological paraphasia, AOS, impaired speech sound cognition, and logoclonia with disease progression. The written language comprehension of the patient was superior to that of spoken language, and she could communicate in writing. She was neurologically normal; had no apraxia, agnosia, or memory impairment; and was independent in activities of daily living. Although she had moderate hearing loss, her speech-related hearing loss was disproportionately high. In analyses of brain imaging, dilation of the left Sylvian fissure, atrophy, and hypoperfusion of the superior temporal gyrus were prominent, and hypoperfusion of the left lateral frontal lobe was observed. Cerebrospinal fluid examination suggested that Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology was unlikely, and decreased uptake was observed on a dopamine-active transporter scan. Word deafness was thought to be the most likely cause of the dissociation between spoken and written language in our patient. Our case and previous studies suggested that there is a syndrome presenting word deafness and speech movement disorders among patients with progressive communication disorders as a different entity from PPA. Although patients with this syndrome may experience agrammatism, inner language disorders are generally not as severe, and disorders in areas closer to the primary area, such as the motor and auditory areas, as well as cortical and subcortical disorders, are involved in this syndrome., Competing Interests: Human subjects: Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study. Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: A Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grant number 20K03440). Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work., (Copyright © 2024, Hayashi et al.)

We examined a patient (NM) with probable Alzheimer's disease who showed phonologically plausible errors in kanji (logogram) writing. In semantic tasks, she showed no deficits in pointing or naming but had difficulty in more complex tasks such as proverb comprehension. In reading aloud of kanji words, she could read most kanji words correctly and showed little phonologically plausible reading errors. She performed poorly in lexical decision and on-reading of one-letter kanji (Sino-Japanese pronunciation derived from the Chinese language at the time of borrowing). Writing to dictation demonstrated no mistakes in kana letters and words, but many errors in kanji, which were phonologically equivalent but semantically inappropriate. To explore the relationship between the writing errors in kanji words and comprehension of the word meanings, we selected 33 words that she made phonologically plausible writing errors. We gave her the following five tasks using these words; 1) to ask meanings of the words, 2) to dictate the words, 3) to dictate sentences including these words, 4) to discriminate appropriate target words from distracters including her own erroneous responses, and 5) to write these words again. She showed no consistent errors in these tasks. In some occasions, she could write correct kanji words without understanding word meanings. She also showed phonologically plausible writing errors in spite of describing correct word meanings. In Japanese, word meaning deficits like Gogi aphasia were thought to cause phonologically plausible writing errors. As the impairments of word meanings in NM are comparatively mild, the underpinning of her kanji agraphias might be different from that of phonologically plausible errors in Gogi aphasia. It would be suggested that she frequently wrote phonologically equivalent errors because of her lexical deficits in spite that her phonological processing was preserved. Furthermore, she would not necessarily use the semantics (word meanings) of kanji words during dictation.