Search

In Japan, the Ainu people have been living mainly in Hokkaido and many Koreans continue to live since the end of the World War Two. Since 1990's, the number of migrant workers has increased rapidly. In this sense, Japanese society has been multicultural and multiethnic. However, those minority groups have been strictly discriminated against in Japanese society and in schools, they have not been given opportunities to multicultural and multiethnic education. Against the ignorance of their culture and language, those minority groups established their own schools apart from existing school system to educate their children with pride of their own culture and language. Today those international and ethnic schools have an important role in providing foreign children with alternative education. Then, those schools have to be supported financially by the Government. The struggle of the Ainu people to establish their own school should be also supported by the Government, since the Ainu people have been recognized as an indigenous people by the Japanese Government. With globalization, the number of foreign students has rapidly increased in public schools. In order to respond to the educational needs of those children, the educational authorities have begun to provide them with special programs for teaching Japanese as a Second Language (JSL) and with native language instruction. Concerning JSL programs, the period of the program should be extended to more than 5 years. It is too short to develop cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP). On the other hand, regarding the quality of JSL program, the content-based program has to be expanded instead of the program that develops only basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS). Native language instruction for different cultural backgrounds should be implemented in every public school as quickly as possible if there is even one such student. (Contains 8 notes and 1 figure.)

CNS neurons change their connectivity to accommodate a changing environment, form memories, or respond to injury. Plasticity in the adult mammalian retina after injury or disease was thought to be limited to restructuring resulting in abnormal retinal anatomy and function. Here we report that neurons in the mammalian retina change their connectivity and restore normal retinal anatomy and function after injury. Patches of photoreceptors in the rabbit retina were destroyed by selective laser photocoagulation, leaving retinal inner neurons (bipolar, amacrine, horizontal, ganglion cells) intact. Photoreceptors located outside of the damaged zone migrated to make new functional connections with deafferented bipolar cells located inside the lesion. The new connections restored ON and OFF responses in deafferented ganglion cells. This finding extends the previously perceived limits of restorative plasticity in the adult retina and allows for new approaches to retinal laser therapy free of current detrimental side effects such as scotomata and scarring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of the collagen chains from αα1(IV) to αα6(IV) could serve as a basis for the characterization of type IV collagen. In this study, immunohistochemistry of the ocular anterior segment of adult mice was performed using specific monoclonal antibodies against each chain in the series from αα1(IV) to αα6(IV). The results show that the components of type IV collagen in vascular basement membranes are αα1(IV) and αα2(IV) with or without αα5(IV) and αα6(IV) chains and those in epithelium and muscle basement membranes are αα1(IV), αα2(IV), αα5(IV), and αα6(IV) chains. In corneal endothelium, pigmented epithelium of iris and ciliary body, and trabecular meshwork, αα3(IV) and αα4(IV) chains are also expressed in addition to αα1(IV), αα2(IV), αα5(IV), and αα6(IV) chains. Moreover, we investigated the change in molecular composition in ciliary body during postnatal development. αα3(IV) and αα4(IV) chains were also expressed in addition to αα1(IV), αα2(IV), αα5(IV), and αα6(IV) chains in ciliary pigmented epithelium basement membrane from 7 days after birth. This result suggests that the basement membranes gradually change their biochemical features owing to temporal regulation. Taken together, these findings suggest that the different distribution and the developmental expression of αα1(IV) to αα6(IV) chains are associated with the tissue-specific function of type IV collagen in basement membranes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]