Town Officials Research Articles

Sacralizing the Playful Secular: The Deity of Karuta-Gambling at the Nose Kannon Hall in Sannohe, Aomori

In a faraway apple orchard in Sannohe, a small town in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture, a zushi miniature wooden shrine at the Nose Kannon Hall caught the media’s attention with its unique adornment—the karuta playing cards with European-inspired abstract designs in bold red and black colors that were used during the early modern period for pastime and gambling. Because of this decoration, the Nose Kannon Hall is known by locals as the Karuta Hall, and the zushi that enshrines the Buddhist deity Bodhisattva Shō-Kanzeon is also believed to be the home of bakuchi no kamisama “the kami deity of gambling”. Little is known about the nature of devotion to this bakuchi no kamisama or how the playing cards that were used for frivolous games came to be sacralized as items worthy to be used as decoration of a Buddhist shrine. This article considers the slippage between prayer and play in the regional Buddhist devotion by focusing on the Nose Kannon Hall, which presided at a key intersection along the northern trade route where the local community and outside visitors, such as pilgrims and traders, converged, especially during the Edo period (1603–1868). Marshaling historical records, televised interviews, and images provided by the town officials and guardian family of Nose Kannon Hall, I argue that the use of karuta playing cards on the miniature shrine at Nose Kannon Hall epitomizes a kind of localized early modern Shinto–Buddhist syncretism at the margins of the urban culture that is simultaneously devotional and tongue-in-cheek sacrilegious in a quintessentially Edo-esque way.

Prevalence of Diabetes and Associated Factors Among Government Employees of Mizan-Aman Town and Zonal Sector Office, Bench Sheko Zone, Southwest Ethiopia Region, 2022.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a serious non-communicable disease (NCD) that represents a major health and development challenge of the 21st century. Ethiopia is the leading country among the top five high-burden African countries for the number of people with diabetes. To address problems within the population, it is important to assess the prevalence of diabetes and identify the risk factors associated with its diagnosis. The study aims to determine the prevalence of diabetes and identify its associated factors among office workers of Mizan-Aman Town administration and Bench Sheko Zone Sector Office. A sector office-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 559 randomly selected employees of Mizan Aman Town Administration and Zonal Office from June 5 to June 30, 2022. Fasting plasma glucose was tested, and the result ≥126 mg/dL was used to diagnose DM. Data were entered using Epi Data version 4.0.2 and exported to the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 26) for analysis. Bivariate analyses were included in the multivariable model with p <0.25. Adjusted odds ratios (AOR) with a confidence interval (CI) of 95% are reported, with a significance level of p < 0.05. The overall prevalence of Diabetes was 9.4% with 95%CI(7.1,12.1)). Among the participants,60.8% were men, 58.2% of workers were aged 40 years or older, and the mean age was 39.7 ± 9.9 years. Having hypertension (AOR 3.85, 95% CI (1.7,7.4), family history of diabetes (AOR 4.5, 95% CI (1.2, 15.8), physical inactivity defined as failure to participate in moderate intensity activities at work, sitting ≥180 minutes per day (AOR = 3.57, 95% CI (1.1, 11.0)) and having central obesity AOR: 3.25, 95% CI (1.5, 6.7) independently associated with higher odds of DM. However, those having good knowledge of DM (AOR=0.26, 95% CI: (0.10, 0.6)) and consuming fruits and vegetables greater than five servings per week (AOR=0.32 95% CI (0.1, 0.7)) predicted lower odds of DM. The prevalence of DM among office workers was high and is associated with lifestyle, family history, dietary practices, and knowledge about DM. Therefore, arranging regular screening programs at the workplace and promotion of healthy diet, exercise, and awareness creation are needed to lower the prevalence.

‘Because They Were Jews!’ The Postwar Artworks of David Friedmann as Eyewitness Testimonies

ABSTRACT This essay presents the work of David Friedman(n) (1893–1980), a renowned Berlin artist whose successful prewar career abruptly ended when Hitler came to power. He was banned from his profession, chased from his home, and his first wife and daughter were murdered. The Nazis looted his work and destroyed his promising career. Friedmann survived the Lodz ghetto and Auschwitz to paint again. First shown in Český Dub, Czechoslovakia on January 27, 1946, then in Western Bohemia, Prague, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, this cycle was one of the first exhibitions of Holocaust art in the world. Friedmann's exhibitions at former Sudetenland towns in Western Bohemia were utilized as a ‘denazification’ tool by local education councils. Announcements and posters invited Slav nationals to a celebratory opening and viewing of the exhibition – with compulsory attendance for ethnic-Germans over the age of fifteen years. Every visitor paid admission. Germans failing to appear did not receive their ration cards. Town officials gladly offered the necessary exhibition halls, for it was in their own interest to show to the Germans still living there, scenes from the ghetto and the concentration camps, by the hand of an artist as witness. When asked, David Friedmann explained his paintings to Sudeten Germans unwilling to believe their countrymen had perpetrated such atrocities against the Jews. Friedman translated his haunting memories into more than 100 works and titled his series, ‘Because They Were Jews!’ Personalized descriptions supplement his artwork creating a singularly detailed pictorial and written record of the Holocaust. Friedman continued to fight antisemitism and racial prejudice by educating the public with his Holocaust art exhibitions.

Assessment of the dichotomy between public ownership of land, expropriation laws and practices in Ethiopia: the case of Burayu town

PurposeThis study aims to investigate key aspects of public ownership of land, expropriation and compensation laws and practices in Ethiopia with special reference to Burayu Town.Design/methodology/approachA mixed research technique of descriptive and analytic approach is applied in the research. This study used a purposive sampling technique to select case study counties and a systematic method for sampling households. Questionnaire surveys, focus group discussions, interviews and observations were used to collect empirical data. Average, percentage and paired-sample t-test analyses are used for quantitative data analysis.FindingsSignificant discrepancies exist between the expropriation laws and how property valuation and compensation are practiced in Ethiopia. The findings include the arbitrariness in designating public interest status to projects; unfair property valuation practice that neglects location factor to determine market value due to a skewed understanding of public ownership of land; and the assignment of property valuators who have no valuation expertise and proper knowledge of expropriation related laws. Findings revealed the socio-economic status of expropriated households has deteriorated due to the expropriation of their landholding.Research limitations/implicationsIt was difficult to locate the relocated persons as they were resettled in different localities. Furthermore, the town officers were not forthcoming to provide complete information on the expropriation and compensation procedures they followed. However, this study overcame the limitations through persistent requests and availing time for the data gathering.Practical implicationsThe findings indicated the need to redefine relationships between public ownership of land, public interest and expropriation of landholding. A proper understanding of the triad will pave the way for better expropriation practice in Ethiopia and in countries where land is under public ownership.Social implicationsThe social implication of the study revealed that the socio-economic situation of relocated persons was adversely affected due to the poor implementation of laws.Originality/valueThe disparity between public ownership of land and the rights of citizens on landholding is misunderstood by policymakers. Research has shown for the first time the root cause for the discontent of expropriated persons in Ethiopia.

Gender and sand extraction in the Usumacinta River basin

Globally, sand and gravel are the second most extracted natural resources by volume after water. Despite that, knowledge about social and gender implications of sand-supply systems is limited. Here we aimed to advance the understanding of practices and gender relations in sand mining at male and female spaces in the Usumacinta River basin in Mexico and Guatemala. Drawing from desk and field research carried out in 79 locations on the riverbanks of the Usumacinta River and eight tributaries, this paper examines the extractive activities, gender roles and conditions of the workers. Sand extraction is characterized by a large diversity of actors, forms of organization, and local practices. We provide empirical evidence of a prevalent gender imbalance in the sand mining sector, as well as between men and women's spaces. Women participate in sand-mining related works in 19.51% of the sites, although in half of those cases they perform administrative tasks from town offices. Overall, their roles are seen as peripheral and minor even as they sell and classify materials and contribute to organizational tasks. We argue that the low participation of women at extraction sites is due to a combination of physically demanding work conditions and deeply ingrained gender norms in rural communities.

The False King Olaf and His Necklace of Letters

The False King Olaf and His Necklace of Letters

Relationship between out-of-facility deliveries and distance and travel time to delivery facilities in Hokkaido, Japan: An ecological study.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the distance and travel time from each municipality to the nearest delivery facilities in the other municipalities and the frequency of out-of-facility deliveries in Hokkaido. Vital statistics from 2016 to 2020 were used. For municipalities without delivery facilities, the distance and travel time from the town office of each municipality to the nearest delivery facility was measured using Google maps. Negative binomial regression with an offset term was used to calculate the relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of out-of-facility delivery for distance (<30, 30-59, ≥60 km), and travel time by car (<30, 30-59, and ≥60 min) from the town office to the nearest delivery facility compared with the presence of delivery facilities. The overall rate of out-of-facility deliveries in Hokkaido was 2.1‰; in municipalities with delivery facilities, 1.8‰, and in municipalities without delivery facilities, 3.1‰. The adjusted RRs (95% CIs) for out-of-facility deliveries were significantly higher in municipalities with less than 30 km and travel time of less than 30 min to delivery facilities, 2.63 (1.34-5.17) and 2.76 (1.36-5.58), respectively, compared to municipalities with delivery facilities. However, the adjusted RR of out-of-facility delivery for municipalities ≥30 km was higher, although the difference was not significant. Even in municipalities with a distance to delivery facilities of less than 30 km or travel time of less than 30 min, we should keep in mind the occurrence of out-of-facility deliveries.

Co-creation and internal place branding: a case study of Plettenberg Bay, South Africa

Co-creation is a common term used in place branding to describe the involvement of stakeholders in the creation of a place’s brand. The motivation behind co-creation is that it will add depth and legitimacy to the brand. Through a process of co-creation, it is also hoped that stakeholders will become active ambassadors of the brand and its values. Co-creation, however, is far from simple in practice—places are complicated, budgets are often small and competing interests are many. This paper examines the processes of co-creation that were initiated by Plett Tourism, a tourism office in a South African seaside town called Plettenberg Bay. By considering this case study, and case studies from other places, it is hoped that a broader conception of co-creation can be understood, one that goes beyond the early stages of involving stakeholders in the creation of a place brand and instead creating a platform for continuous engagement with stakeholders. Part of this engagement is sometimes called internal place branding, and so the ways in which internal place branding intersects with co-creation will discussed in this paper too.

Orthodontic treatment quality evaluated by partially automated digital IOTN and PAR index determination: a retrospective multicentre study.

Orthodontic therapy aims to treat misaligned teeth and jaws to improve dental occlusion as well as the function and aesthetics of the masticatory system. Continuous data collection to check treatment quality is of great importance for the constant optimization of orthodontic care. The aim of this retrospective multicentre cohort study was to systematically determine the outcome and quality of orthodontic treatment by applying the internationally established Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (IOTN) and Peer Assessment Rating (PAR) index in multiple clinical settings for a representative number of patient cases. A total of 1509 consecutive orthodontic patient cases (treatment completion between January 2018 and December 2020) from three representative orthodontic centres (University clinic, city office, small town office) were analysed in a multicentre study. The pre- and post-treatment casts were scanned, digitally measured, and partially automatically evaluated using the IOTN and PAR indices. A statistically significant improvement in occlusion was observed for medically necessary treatment of IOTN grades 4 and 5 in 97.30 per cent of the analysed cases and for treatment-requiring grades 2 and 3 in 94.08 per cent of the analysed cases. The average percentage PAR improvement was 76.51 per cent. 72.50 per cent of cases showed improvement of more than 70 per cent. The mean PAR index score was reduced from 28.19 ± 9.49 to 6.22 ± 5.41 points. The present data demonstrate that orthodontic treatment is efficient in inducing significant improvement of malocclusions in general and has a high success rate with severe dysgnathia.

Enroling around—Reconfiguring place and space in the wake of a new reception centre in a small rural town

AbstractThe paper examines how a small rural town Kauhava, Finland, is reconfigured in the wake of a reception centre being established. Drawing on the conceptual toolbox of the sociology of associations, we find that regardless of attitudes towards asylum seekers, people springing into action and enroling others leads to the problematisation and intensification of place. This involves turning public and private spaces into contested places. Competing definitions of community and identity emerge. While new identities are configured, new associations and ways of linking actors and places together also take form. The paper examines how the micropolitics of place and belonging are carried out in practice, and what types of mechanisms bring about or prevent new conjunctions and transformations in places. The data consist of interviews in Kauhava with town officials, reception centre volunteers, opponents of the centre and refugees who have stayed in the town.

“The Army of Exempts”: Medical Examinations and the Challenges of Mobilization in Civil War Connecticut

“The Army of Exempts”: Medical Examinations and the Challenges of Mobilization in Civil War Connecticut

Study on the Development of Multi-Purpose Fire Engines through Vehicle Safety Factor Design

With the recent rapid economic growth, the construction of high-rise buildings such as new town apartment complexes, residential-commercial complexes, and office buildings has increased. This study thus attempted to develop a multi-purpose fire engine to enhance the response to a fire and rescue efforts in line with the steady increase in the demand for safety in high-rise buildings, through a design that combined techniques that focused on large ladders and a midsized 5-ton fire pump engine. A ladder function was added to the most widely used fire engine, with the design incorporating a maximum ladder height of 20 m for fire suppression and lifesaving. A basket was fitted to the end of the ladder to enable firefighters to safely perform these tasks, while the outrigger was designed to vertically descend to allow ladder work as long as vehicle entry is possible despite illegally parked cars. Based on the chassis of a commercial 5-ton fire engine as a type of conventional midsized pump engine, the result was a multi-purpose fire engine developed for special uses that require both fire pump and ladder functions. The multi-purpose fire engine was designed in consideration of safety factors for the direct rescue of people from buildings using a basket rated for a maximum load of 250 kg, through the application of a boom in addition to the common fire pump. It is expected that after their rapid arrival at the scene of a fire, such multi-purpose fire engines could be used for firefighting or lifesaving at relatively low 2-6-story buildings. It is anticipated that the present investigation and other relevant studies will allow the application of this novel design to various other vehicle types such as water tanks, chemical tanks, and rescue vehicles.

The Founding Mothers of Mackinac Island: The Agatha Biddle Band of 1870 by Theresa L. Weller

Reviewed by: The Founding Mothers of Mackinac Island: The Agatha Biddle Band of 1870 by Theresa L. Weller David A. Nichols Theresa L. Weller, The Founding Mothers of Mackinac Island: The Agatha Biddle Band of 1870. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2021. xx, 223 pp. $32.95 (paper). The Biddle Band, named for their ogimaa Agatha Biddle, was a majority female group who applied for annuity payments under the Anishinaabe land cession treaties of 1836 and 1855. Their names appear on the annuity roll of 1870, as updated a generation later by Horace Durant. This document became the starting point for Weller's deep dive into the band's genealogical history. While biologically unrelated to one another, members of the Biddle Band shared several features in common. Most were Catholic, or at least married and baptized their children according to the church's rites. (Sometimes, given the irregular availability of priests, the couple's marriage rites and the baptism of their first children took place at the same time.) Many had Francophone names, inherited from French voyageur ancestors or recommended [End Page 119] by French-speaking godparents. Nearly all were women who had married White or Métis husbands, in harmony with Indigenous exogamous marriage rules. And most went on to make the band a superlatively fertile group of ancestors, whose members bore a total of 470 children (seven apiece, on average) over the course of the nineteenth century. In researching the band's genealogy, Weller has recovered hundreds of names and birth and death dates. Often that is all the available records will provide. The Biddle Band's members and early descendants were not wealthy people, and only a minority left a larger record of their lives. These were fascinating lives all the same. Some husbands and brothers had been fur traders. Others worked as lighthouse keepers, town officials, or boat captains. One, Charles Logan, was a basket maker who plied the tourist trade at Saint Ignace. Several served as soldiers in the Civil War and one was old enough to have been a drummer boy in the War of 1812. The Biddle Band's female members were preoccupied, for a good part of their lives, with childbearing and childrearing. A few worked as herbalists and midwives or as teachers—like Martha Tanner, daughter of famed White captive John Tanner—or, in Agatha Biddle's case, as the band's provisioner and civil chief. For genealogists researching family history in the Great Lakes region, Founding Mothers of Mackinac Island will serve as an indispensable reference. For students of Native American history, Weller's capsule biographies of band members will provide starting points for deeper research into the region's ongoing Indigenous history: how women and men held on to traditional roles as healers, fishermen, traders, parents, and chiefs, while pursuing new opportunities and robustly growing their population. Theresa Weller's deeply researched book, and the scholarship one hopes it will inspire, will remind us that long after the supposed end of the "frontier era," the Midwest remained Indian Country. [End Page 120] David A. Nichols Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana Copyright © 2022 University of Nebraska Press

Iklan Aesthetics in Niger: Identity and Adornment from Servility to Self-agency

<i>Iklan</i> Aesthetics in Niger: Identity and Adornment from Servility to Self-agency

Stuck in the Middle: The Challenges of Local Government Administration of Post-Hurricane Disaster Mitigation

The use of post-disaster mitigation strategies such as buyouts and home elevations as climate change adaptation and risk reduction strategies has become increasingly common. Little research to-date, however, has examined the experience of local administrators of these programs, despite the critical role they play as on-the-ground implementers. We interviewed 18 county and town officials from North Carolina who administered the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) following Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Our goal was to better understand the difficulties local administrators face in program implementation and the complexities of their relationship with other program stakeholders. We identified several recurring challenges facing these officials, including limited capacity; staff turnover, program delays; and a lack of flexibility, clarity, and communication. These issues make implementation challenging for administrators and strain their relationships with program participants and higher levels of government, in turn reducing program success and credibility. These results provide valuable insight into the perspective and experience of local administrators as HMGP implementers.

Children home unattended polysomnography in a town office practice: Feasibility, quality and patients and caregivers’ satisfaction

Children home unattended polysomnography in a town office practice: Feasibility, quality and patients and caregivers’ satisfaction

“We wait to be true people, Christians”: An Idolatry Confession in Zapotec

Context This article presents a translation and analysis of the only extant formal confession of human sacrifice written in an Indigenous language in the colonial Americas. An analysis of this document, written in Northern Zapotec by the town officials of Yalalag in 1704, provides numerous insights about how a community deployed traditional rhetoric to seek mercy from their civil magistrate, and to provide a justification for committing acts of idolatry and child sacrifice. Rather than aligning with the canonical middle ground (nepantla), often used as a yardstick, this confession eloquently and incisively places Northern Zapotec society in tentative terrain point in terms of their knowledge of Christianity, and depicts Christianization as a long-term process, which confessants boldly tied to latent forms of negotiation.

Strengthening Community Participation by People With Disabilities in Community-Based Group Homes Through Innovative Action Research

In the US and beyond, a paradigm shift is underway toward community-based care, motivated by changes in policies, payment models and social norms. A significant aspect of this shift for disability activists and policy makers is ensuring participation in community life for individuals with disabilities living in residential homes. Despite a U.S. government ruling that encourages community participation and provides federal and state funding to realize it, little progress has been made. This study builds on and integrates the expanded model of value creation with relational coordination theory by investigating how the resources and relationships between care providers, adults with disabilities, family members, and community members can be leveraged to create value for residents through meaningful community participation. The purpose of our community case study was to assess and improve the quality of relationships between stakeholder groups, including direct care staff and managers, residents, family members, and the community through an action research intervention. This study took place in a residential group home in a Northeastern US community serving adults with disabilities from acquired brain injury. A pre-test post-test design was used and quantitative assessments of relational coordination were collected through electronic surveys, administered at baseline, and post-intervention. Direct care staff, supervisors, the house manager, and nursing staff completed the survey. Qualitative data were collected through focus groups, change team meetings, and key informant interviews. Direct care staff formed a change team to reflect on their baseline relational coordination data and identified the weak ties between direct care staff, family members, and the community as an area of concern. Staff chose to hold a community-wide open house to provide an opportunity to foster greater understanding among staff, residents, family, and community members. The change team and other staff members coordinated with local schools, business owners, town officials, churches, and neighbors. The event was attended by 50 people, about two-thirds from the community. Following the intervention, there was an increase in staff relational coordination with the community. While statistical significance could not be assessed, the change in staff RC with the community was considered qualitatively significant in that real connections were made with members of the community both directly and afterwards. Despite a small sample size, a residential setting where management was favorable to initiating staff-led interventions, and no comparison or control group, our small pilot study provides tentative evidence that engaging direct care staff in efforts to improve relational coordination with community members may succeed in building relationships that are essential to realizing the goal of greater participation in community life.

Whoso List to Find?

Seeing what Englishwomen saw in the early modern period brings them into view in a variety of new ways, many of them managed and enhanced by the machinery of cheap print. In contrast with Petrarchan poetry, which imagined women with fear and described love as plague, print established other models of health and wellness, and other ways of registering women’s powers. Women known as searchers who were charged to enter houses and locate plague rather than flee from it shared their findings with town officials who printed up statistics in weekly Bills of Mortality. The searcher was both a ‘harbinger of disaster’ and a tool of recovery, and popular ballads of the time frequently deploy her example along with her abilities to avoid ruin and register signs of life. These ballads supply alternatives to Petrarchan demographics, and I examine the ways early modern female poets draw upon their methodology, too.

Whoso List to Find?

Seeing what Englishwomen saw in the early modern period brings them into view in a variety of new ways, many of them managed and enhanced by the machinery of cheap print. In contrast with Petrarchan poetry, which imagined women with fear and described love as plague, print established other models of health and wellness, and other ways of registering women’s powers. Women known as searchers who were charged to enter houses and locate plague rather than flee from it shared their findings with town officials who printed up statistics in weekly Bills of Mortality. The searcher was both a ‘harbinger of disaster’ and a tool of recovery, and popular ballads of the time frequently deploy her example along with her abilities to avoid ruin and register signs of life. These ballads supply alternatives to Petrarchan demographics, and I examine the ways early modern female poets draw upon their methodology, too.