Presentation order

Florian Coulmas

Institute for East Asian Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen, GERMANY

Viral

Even before the pandemic, we were out of breath and chained to the Internet. COVID-19 has amplified that many times over, forcing us into everyday contradictions. I hate to converse with my friends and colleagues online; yet, I do it, faute de mieux. I know that providers of online conference tools abuse their customers by exploiting the data they cannot but make accessible to them; yet, I take part in online conferences like this one. How do others think about this dilemma? Do they think about it at all? When the pandemic could no longer be played down I decided to ask people around the world to answer some questions—online, of course. The resultant survey is in no way representative, but the answers that participants from all inhabited continents offered are interesting nonetheless. In this paper, I will report on some of the findings.

Katsuhiro Nishinari

Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, JAPAN

Crowd Management for Keeping Distance with a Focus on the Elderly

The modeling of dinamic distances of crowds of pedestrians is a crucial issue in a scientific and application approach to support crowd managament activities, and the emergence due to the Covid-19 requires focusing on it, providing further studies and computer-based simulations, also considering the human behavior. In the organization of collective events, in order to avoid the spreading of infection, it is important to keep distance between individuals in crowded places. This is a new challenge for crowd management in order to hold large events successfully, such as Olympics and Expo. Some ideas for this purpose are shown in the talk, including queuing or boarding process, coming from advanced studies for the modeling and simulation of crowds and pedestrians.

Laura Liverani

Documentary Photographer, Milan, ITALY

Distant Proximities: Representations of the Elderly in Photography

This paper examines the representation of the elderly in photography in relation to the distance, both physical and virtual, between photographer and subject, as an encounter between who is looking and who is looked at. Inscribed in a relationship of power that is often non-symmetrical, the photographic portrait can be problematic; the photographer’s gaze, directed at the subject, can reaffirm stereotypical representations of the Other. Is it possible to reduce or efface the distance between observer and observed, to achieve a collaborative/participatory mode of representation that is able to break stereotypes? Within this framework, two bodies of photographic works portraying the elderly in Japan will be presented: Japan Pom Pom (2014), focusing on a team of senior cheerleaders in Tokyo, and The Sugamo Lookbooks (2018), focusing on a group of elderly models from Sugamo, the iconic Tokyo neighborhood that caters to the fashion-conscious senior.

Yukio Ohsawa

Department of Systems Innovation, The University of Tokyo, JAPAN

Stay with Your Community by Designing Preliminary Encounters

According to the speaker’s recent simulations with a modified scale-free network, it has been shown that the risk of an infection spreading is amplified via the bridges between communities defined by clusters of people who meet each other by choice. This means intercommunity face-to-face collaborations may potentially bring substantial risk. In this talk, the concept of preliminary encounters is introduced as an approach toward innovation under these circumstances in which we live with COVID-19. As a method for data-interactive innovation, the speaker introduces data jackets (DJs) as metadata representing the subjective or potential interests of the participants in the data market. By visualizing the connectivity between DJs and deepening communication, people can co-create knowledge and plans in business and the sciences by combining datamand externalized tacit knowledge in their daily activities.

Alberto Borghese

Dipartimento di Informatica “Giovanni Degli Antoni”, Università degli Studi di Milano, ITALY

Integrating Service Robots and Virtual Communities to Reduce the Distance Between Caregivers and Independently Living Seniors

A novel platform will be presented that integrates a service robot with an IoT (Internet of Things) network, smart objects, an activity center, and a virtual community, all orchestrated by an intelligent virtual caregiver. In a robust and redundant way, the platform provides monitoring, assistance, and stimulation at the point of need. The system is mainly targeted at seniors who live alone and are at risk of becoming frail. Its key characteristics are that the senior neither has to wear anything, nor is intervention at his/her home required. Monitoring is carried out by combining the data from all components, and it is totally transparent and unobtrusive to the user. Preliminary results from home use will be reported and discussed.

Tomoo Matsuda

Platinum Society Center, Mitsubishi Research Institute, Tokyo, JAPAN

How are Japanese Elderly Lifestyles Changing in the Covid-19 Era?

Many people worldwide have experienced huge changes in their lifestyles due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation will focus on the changing lifestyles of elderly Japanese, and on how big data and AI will contribute to this change. With the elderly population making up 28 percent of the population in Japan and 23 percent in Italy, both countries are facing a super-aging society, something that has recently posed a serious risk. Social distancing has had a huge impact on the elderly in Japan as they have lost direct and real communication with friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. On the other hand, online communications are rapidly increasing through the newly coined term “IoS,” or “Internet of Seniors.” New survey data on the elderly in Japan showing lifestyle, behavior, communication, and consumption will be discussed. A comparative analysis will be shown between men and women, physical and psychological, urban and rural, positive and negative. Some best practices of multidisciplinary views of big data and AI will be introduced that could stimulatethe future of social living for an aging society and a "longevi-city".

Atsushi Sugano

Kodo Cultural Foundation, Sado, Niigata, JAPAN

The Exadon Project: Blending Taiko with Medical Care to Benefit an Ageing Society

Exadon is an innovative fitness program with two main purposes: health promotion and preventive healthcare. Launched in 2014, the initiative is centered around enjoying taiko (traditional Japanese drums), performing arts, and physical activity. The name Exadon combines three words: “exercise,” “Sado,” an island in the Sea of Japan, and the sound of beating a taiko drum, “don.” Taiko is an instrument that can be enjoyed by young and old, and people of all abilities. Exadon aims to cultivate a new taiko culture that brings inner peace to people from all walks of life, connecting traditionally distant generations and communities. In the talk, the project will be illustrated, and videos describing the Exadon method to combat physical and mental impairment in the elderly will be shown.

Patrick Heinrich

Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, ITALY

Is There a 'Young Generation' in Japan, and If So, what Sets Them Apart from Others?

“Generation” or “youth” are concepts that are often discussed, albeit not always in strict academic terms. I will first introduce a sociological definition of “generation” and then apply this concept to a discussion of youth in contemporary Japan. I argue that there is a young generation in Japan that is fundamentally different from previous generations in postwar Japan. The defining event for this young generation in Japan is not Fukushima but the bursting of the economic bubble. The subsequent economic stagnation, and the change in opportunities for young people, caused a dénouement of the contradictions in how Japan has been popularly imagined and the actual lives of young people in the Heisei period. The way in which the young generation makes sense of contemporary Japan does not mean that there is a conflict or opposition with older generations. Young people in Japan today are at pains to make the transition into adulthood. The classic pathway into adulthood, gaining independence and responsibility, is blocked for an increasing number of young Japanese. As a result, a number of ambitions, lifestyles, partnership patterns, and so on, are changing. This is often held against the young generation, but I want to show that many have had no choice. They have been born into this. They were raised in a society that is fundamentally different to that of their parents when they were young.

Paolo Heritier

Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza e Scienze Politiche, Economiche e Sociali, Università del Piemonte Orientale, ITALY

The Paradox of Distance and Closeness in the Law: Independent Living for Older People and “Thirdness”

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) aims to remove barriers to promote full inclusion and participation in society for disabled people. That shift could be equally warranted concerning older persons, especially when considering disability and aging. The absence of an international convention on the rights of older persons indicates that countries lack specific guidance and obligations to address older people’s human rights: we need a new understanding of “elder law” within a proposed human rights framework. From a legal perspective, the paradoxical and partly fictional feature of the approach of independent living appears familiar to both the situation of disability and aging. Even if the ideal of living independently seems, in fact, impossible in some cases, if taken literally, it appears to be the only approach capable of supporting legal and social practices of inclusion and the promotion of active aging. We need to believe that every disabled and older person can be independent to promote active aging and avoid abuse. The legal notion of “thirdness” could help to solve the paradox between distance and closeness, fiction and reality, moving from Sugimoto Hiroshi’s series, “Theaters.”

Daniela Caso, Marcella Bianchi

Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, ITALY

Distance Teaching: The Role of Age on Italian Teachers’ Computer Anxiety and Attitudes toward ICT

The study of the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the professional practice of teachers is an important field in the growing diffusion of new digital technologies. While there is much evidence that ICT can represent a useful educational tool, for instance helping students visualize abstract ideas and simplify the collection of reliable information, researchers have found that in practice teachers can often be reluctant to actually integrate ICT. The international emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has proved challenging for teachers from different countries who must now rely only on the use of ICT but without having received any training. Previous research investigating the impact of age on teachers’ attitudes toward ICT showed contrasting findings, suggesting the importance of further studies in this field. We examine the attitudes of a group of Italian teachers toward ICT during the period of imposed distance teaching, and consider the impact of age.

Vincenzo Paolo Senese

Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, ITALY

How Remembrances of Parental Rejection and Genetic Characteristics Weigh on Depression: A Cross-Cultural Study

The perception of interpersonal rejection, that is of physically and psychologically hurtful behaviors and emotions, has consistently been empirically implicated in a wide array of developmental, behavioral, and psychological problems worldwide. However, the relationship between perceived rejection and genetic characteristics has yet to be investigated. The present study investigates gene-environment interactions between parental rejection (maternal and paternal) and oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene polymorphisms on depressive symptoms in adults across two different cultural contexts: Italy and Japan. The results confirmed the importance of the quality of parental relationships (of both parents) on depression and, for the first time, showed that the effect of primary interpersonal relations is also regulated by genetic characteristics. Lastly, it has been observed that this latter effect also depends on the population considered. These findings align with expected relations between perceived interpersonal rejection and an individual’s mental health, as proposed by the interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, and indicate the need for future studies adopting a multivariate and epigenetic perspective to better understand how the effects of interpersonal rejection extend into adulthood and old age.