Foreign Otherness in Japanese Media. Exploring the Japanese self through the images of Latin America

Foreign Otherness in Japanese Media analyzes contemporary Japanese society by examining the ways in which Japanese media portrays Latin America and therefore how Japanese readers construct their idea of it. Offering a detailed methodology and results from field research, and based on concepts such as otherness, cultivation analysis and the theory of the autopoietic social system as a framework, this book considers the impact of mass media on the construction of non-dominant foreign cultural subjectivities in Japan, and explores the dynamics of otherness in the country. As such, it is apt for scholars in Japanese studies, media studies, and anyone interested in the interaction between foreigners or Latin Americans and Japan, or in relations between mainstream society and minority groups.

Spanish imperfect subjunctive form –se

This paper analyzes use of and linguistic attitudes toward the Spanish imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive –se form (e.g., tuviese ‘had’ and hubiese tenido ‘had had’, respectively). The study consists of two phases, P1 and P2. P1 is quantitative in nature and focuses on production of the form; P2 is qualitative in nature and centers on linguistic attitudes associated with –se. P1 data come from 24 Spanish speakers and a semi-controlled oral/written interview. P2 data are from 15 Spanish speakers and a questionnaire. Chi-square results were significant for nationality, i.e., Spaniards used the –se form significantly more than Latin Americans. Sex, modality (oral/written), syntactic context, and verb type were all found insignificant. Qualitative comments from P2 suggest an overall negative association with the –se form. A somewhat weak relationship between the form and Spanish nationality emerged from the Latin American cohort, but not strong enough to suggest a definitive stereotype.

The concentration of power in the market for contemporary art: an empirical analysis of ArtReview’s “Power 100”

Art experts and intermediaries play a crucial role in art markets. Artworks are goods whose quality is difficult to determine. Therefore, it seems necessary to restrict competition in the market for art experts to a certain extent, but not too much, in order to provide high-quality know-how. This paper contains an empirical analysis of the extent to which the market for art experts is concentrated. To this end, different methods for measuring the market concentration are applied, with an emphasis on the determination of the distribution function of a newly defined Power Index. The annual Power 100 ranking in the magazine ArtReview from 2002 to 2019 is used to study concentration in the art expert market. The results reveal not only several indications of a hierarchically tiered, but also highly concentrated market power in this market. First, the selection of nationalities of the so-called power members is biased, given that particularly Americans and western Europeans are overrepresented in relation to their world population shares, in contrast to underrepresented Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans. Second, although there is considerable variability in the low tiers of the ranking, the top positions in the rankings are very stable, as shown by the Power Dominance Index. Third, the main empirical result of this paper is that the Top 99 ranking positions follow an extreme value Fréchet distribution with a fat tail. This is interpreted as an indication of excessive concentration on the highest tier of art experts. Liberalizing the art expert market to a certain extent may provide more diversity and less dominance in high-end art markets.

Latin Americans and US Hispanics show differences in IBD phenotype: a systematic review with meta-analysis

Latin America has experienced a rise in the prevalence and incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Differences in IBD phenotype between Hispanics in Latin America and those in the USA have not been described. We conducted a systematic review with meta-analysis of population-based and cohort studies comparing the phenotype of ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) in Latin Americans and US Hispanics. A systematic search was conducted up to March 2019 using MEDLINE, EMBASE and Google Scholar. Inclusion criterion includes studies describing IBD phenotype in Latin Americans or in US Hispanics. Exclusion criterion includes prevalence or incidence studies not describing phenotype. A random effects model was chosen “a priori” for analysis of pooled proportions. A total of 46 studies were included from Latin America and 7 studies from the USA. The predominant IBD subtype in Latin America was UC with a more balanced UC:CD ratio noted in Puerto Rico (0.53) and Brazil (0.56). UC-related extensive colitis was more common in US Hispanics (0.64) than in Latin Americans (0.38), p<0.001. CD phenotype was similar between US Hispanics and Latin Americans. UC is the predominant IBD subtype in Latin America, with the exception of Puerto Rico and Brazil which demonstrate a more balanced UC:CD ratio. In UC, extensive colitis was more frequently seen in US Hispanics than in Latin Americans. CD phenotype was similar in both US Hispanics and Latin Americans.

Ready, Set, Vaccine: The Path to COVID-19 Recovery in Latin America

The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged countries across Latin America. Although the region continues to suffer, the promise of vaccinations provides reason for hope. As vaccines become more widely accessible in Latin America, public support for and willingness to receive the vaccine will be essential to pandemic recovery. Recognizing this, politicians in the region are already actively publicly promoting vaccination. In this research note, we explore Latin Americans’ attitudes on vaccine acceptance as well as the influence of political recruitment for vaccination and both consumption of and trust in news from politicians on self-reported attitudes of vaccine acceptance. We learn that, in general, Latin Americans are receptive to vaccination but that acceptance varies as a function of country, time, and recruitment and, interestingly, that Latin Americans are actually dissuaded from vaccination if encouraged by politicians. We conclude with a discussion and a plea that vaccination campaigns remain separate from political ones.

“They Look Like They’re Trying to Pull Up Nails with Their Heels”: Ricardo Güiraldes’s Response to Cultural Appropriation in Don Segundo Sombra

Cultural appropriation has often been linked to American treatment of indigenous cultures. In Playing Indian, for example, Philip J. Deloria investigates how images of Indianness, however inauthentic, stereotypical, or completely ethnocentric, work to help white Americans come to terms with their history of conquest and possession. While the term cultural appropriation has been linked to the conflict between dominant and indigenous cultures as Deloria suggests, it is used far less frequently with respect to American and Latin American cultural identities. Yet, the preponderance of movies and literary works in which Americans follow the same rubric – use Latin American culture to define American cultural identity – evoke the same sense of loss on the part of Latin Americans, in this case, Argentines. For over a century, for example, the gaucho has been examined, evaluated, and reevaluated by Argentines within gauchesque literature to make sense of modernization, notions of civilization versus barbarism, and what creates argentinidad, or what it means to be Argentine. Ricardo Güiraldes sought to respond to the cultural appropriation and misrepresentation of the gaucho, specifically that gaucho culture could be taken up by anyone and used for any purpose, no matter how benign; and that gauchos were a part of the past, eschewing modernization in forms such as industrial ranching and technology when, in fact, they embraced it. In Don Segundo Sombra, Güiraldes addresses these issues. Rather than permit cultural appropriation and ethnocentrism to remain unremarked upon, Güiraldes demonstrates that gaucho culture has remarkable qualities that cannot be imitated by novices, both foreign and native. He then examines gaucho culture, particularly the link between frontier life and economic displacement, in order to champion the gaucho and argentinidad as the models for Argentines to follow.

Disentangling signatures of selection before and after European colonization in Latin Americans

Throughout human evolutionary history, large-scale migrations have led to intermixing (i.e., admixture) between previously separated human groups. While classical and recent work have shown that studying admixture can yield novel historical insights, the extent to which this process contributed to adaptation remains underexplored. Here, we introduce a novel statistical model, specific to admixed populations, that identifies loci under selection while determining whether the selection likely occurred post-admixture or prior to admixture in one of the ancestral source populations. Through extensive simulations we show that this method is able to detect selection, even in recently formed admixed populations, and to accurately differentiate between selection occurring in the ancestral or admixed population. We apply this method to genome-wide SNP data of ~4,000 individuals in five admixed Latin American cohorts from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Our approach replicates previous reports of selection in the HLA region that are consistent with selection post-admixture. We also report novel signals of selection in genomic regions spanning 47 genes, reinforcing many of these signals with an alternative, commonly-used local-ancestry-inference approach. These signals include several genes involved in immunity, which may reflect responses to endemic pathogens of the Americas and to the challenge of infectious disease brought by European contact. In addition, some of the strongest signals inferred to be under selection in the Native American ancestral groups of modern Latin Americans overlap with genes implicated in energy metabolism phenotypes, plausibly reflecting adaptations to novel dietary sources available in the Americas.

Machine Learning for Prediction of Stable Warfarin Dose in US Latinos and Latin Americans

Populations used to create warfarin dose prediction algorithms largely lacked participants reporting Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. While previous research suggests nonlinear modeling improves warfarin dose prediction, this research has mainly focused on populations with primarily European ancestry. We compare the accuracy of stable warfarin dose prediction using linear and nonlinear machine learning models in a large cohort enriched for US Latinos and Latin Americans (ULLA). Each model was tested using the same variables as published by the International Warfarin Pharmacogenetics Consortium (IWPC) and using an expanded set of variables including ethnicity and warfarin indication. We utilized a multiple linear regression model and three nonlinear regression models: Bayesian Additive Regression Trees, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines, and Support Vector Regression. We compared each model’s ability to predict stable warfarin dose within 20% of actual stable dose, confirming trained models in a 30% testing dataset with 100 rounds of resampling. In all patients (n = 7,030), inclusion of additional predictor variables led to a small but significant improvement in prediction of dose relative to the IWPC algorithm (47.8 versus 46.7% in IWPC, p = 1.43 × 10−15). Nonlinear models using IWPC variables did not significantly improve prediction of dose over the linear IWPC algorithm. In ULLA patients alone (n = 1,734), IWPC performed similarly to all other linear and nonlinear pharmacogenetic algorithms. Our results reinforce the validity of IWPC in a large, ethnically diverse population and suggest that additional variables that capture warfarin dose variability may improve warfarin dose prediction algorithms.

Latin America's post-COVID democratic pressures rise

Significance The latest survey suggests that, while the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic downturn did not, at least initially, undermine support for democracy, the pressure of demands on it will continue to mount. Impacts Only half of the 49% of Latin Americans who prefer democracy as a system of government are satisfied with its results. Low-income countries are particularly vulnerable to populist candidates who offer a quick fix to their country’s problems. The ability of Latin American governments to address inequality will be crucial for the region’s future social cohesion.