The industrial society in Japan is now entering into a new era of an advanced information society or a network society. AI as a knowledge information processing technology is becoming an integral part of the society. This emerging era is being supported by the information industry.

The paper is based on a review of research on media selection and related topics on the one hand and on an explorative pilot survey on the other. In summarising the review, the authors propose that the factors explaining media choice be grouped into five categories: (1) the properties of the media itself affect its choice, (2) properties of the user affect media choice, (3) the communication situation plays an important role, (4) macro factors explain media choice, and (5) media (...) choice can be explained as the outcome of a dynamic multiparty negotiation process. The pilot survey compares Japanese and Finnish students’ preference of media in various communication situations. The survey results encourage reserving, local macro factors or culture, a certain amount of explanatory force in explaining media choice. (shrink)

We propose an efficient algorithm for deciding the reachability between any nodes on XML data represented by connected directed graphs. We develop a technique to reduce the size of the reference table for the reachability test. Using the small table and the standard range labeling method for rooted ordered trees, we show that our algorithm answers almost queries in a constant time preserving the space efficiency and a reasonable preprocessing time.

This paper reports the findings of a comparative study in which students’ perceived attainment of the objectives of an engineering ethics education and their attitude towards engineering ethics were investigated and compared. The investigation was carried out in Japan and Malaysia, involving 163 and 108 engineering undergraduates respectively. The research method used was based on a survey in which respondents were sent a questionnaire to elicit relevant data. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed on the data. The results (...) of the analyses showed that the attainment of the objectives of engineering ethics education and students’ attitude towards socio-ethical issues in engineering were significantly higher and positive among Japanese engineering students compared to Malaysian engineering students. Such findings suggest that a well-structured, integrated, and innovative pedagogy for teaching ethics will have an impact on the students’ attainment of ethics education objectives and their attitude towards engineering ethics. As such, the research findings serve as a cornerstone to which the current practice of teaching and learning of engineering ethics education can be examined more critically, such that further improvements can be made to the existing curriculum that can help produce engineers that have strong moral and ethical characters. (shrink)

The essay is a written version of a talk Nakamura Yūjirō gave at the College international de philosophie in Paris in 1983. In the talk Nakamura connects the issue of common sense in his own work to that of place in Nishida Kitarō and the creative imagination in Miki Kiyoshi. He presents this connection between the notions of common sense, imagination, and place as constituting one important thread in contemporary Japanese philosophy. He begins by discussing the significance of (...) place (basho) that is being rediscovered today in response to the shortcomings of the modern Western paradigm, and discusses it in its various senses, such as ontological ground or substratum, the body, symbolic space, and linguistic or discursive topos in ancient rhetoric. He then relates this issue to the philosophy of place Nishida developed in the late 1920s, and after providing an explication of Nishida’s theory, discusses it further in light of some linguistic and psychological theories. Nakamura goes on to discuss his own interest in the notion of common sense traceable to Aristotle and its connection to the rhetorical concept of topos, and Miki’s development of the notion of the imagination in the 1930s in response to Nishida’s theory. And in doing so he ties all three—common sense, place, and imagination—together as suggestive of an alternative to the modern Cartesian standpoint of the rational subject that has constituted the traditional paradigm of the modern West. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the use of effortless attention in performing daily activities and tasks. It details a study developed by The University of Chicago and Claremont Graduate University, and named the Experience Sampling Method to collect data from subjects of the study investigating the use of effortless attention in daily life. The findings are based on an ESM study of subjects consisting of middle and high school students from around the United States and the Sloan Study of Youth and (...) Social Development. The Sloan study focuses on investigating both effortful and effortless attention experiences of the subjects. A large number of students reveal how effortless attention has helped them to focus better on several tasks without much effort. (shrink)

◎清末の知識人は複数の「文明」から自らの思想資源を探っていったと考察する画期的論考なる.

Free will in intentional consciousness is exposed to skeptics since it was found that subconscious neural activities, what is called readiness potential, precedes the intention to an action. The question of whether free will is an authentic illusion has been argued not only in psychology but physics and philosophy. Most of scientists, however, think that the intentional consciousness who believes to have his/her own free will, is determined by readiness potential in advance, and that free will cannot coexist with determinism. (...) We here point out that knowing to be determined in advance cannot be verified till local event at a local site can be known from a different local site without disturbing the event. That is the assumption of locality. We here show that determinism, free will and locality are three essential elements in consciousness, and show that they constitute trilemma. The fact that one of three elements must be abandoned can lead to three types of consciousness. Absence of free will can constitute type I consciousness which is consistent with symptoms in autism spectrum disorder such as weakened theory of mind. Absence of determinism can constitute type II consciousness which is consistent with symptoms in schizophrenia such as thought insertion, self-other integration. Absence of locality can constitute type III consciousness which is consistent with typical people. We can find the entanglement of intentional consciousness with unconsciousness including readiness potential only in type III consciousness. Finally, we show that sense of agency and free will cannot be established until consciousness as an entanglement is implemented. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop an organization method of page information agents for adaptive interface between a user and a Web search engine. Though a Web search engine indicates a hit list of Web pages to user’s query using a large database, they includes many useless ones. Thus a user has to select useful Web pages from them with page information indicated on the hit list, and actually fetch the Web page for investigating the relevance. Unfortunately, since the page information (...) on a hit list is neither sufficient nor necessary for a user, the adequate information is necessary for valid selection. However which information is adequate depends on a user and a task. Hence we propose adaptive interface AOAI in which different page information agents are organized through man-machine interaction. In AOAI, the page information agents indicating different page information on a hit list like the file-size, network traffic and a page title are prepared at first. A user evaluates them through searching with a search engine, and the agents are organized based on the evaluation. As results, different organizations are achieved depending on a user and a task. Finally we make experiments with subjects and find out AOAI is promising for adaptive interface between a user and a search engine. (shrink)

Japanese Buddhism is sometimes called “funeral Buddhism” contemptuously. Buddhism is often criticized in that it serves only the dead and does not useful for the living. In truth, the main duties of Buddhist monks are to perform funeral services, maintain graves and perform memorial services for the dead in Japan today. Modern Buddhist leaders in Japan tried to argue against such criticism and insisted that Buddhism in origin was not a religion for the dead but for the living. In the (...) post-modern situation, however, the philosophy of the dead is becoming necessary instead of the philosophy of the living that has been prevalent in modern ages. The living human beings cannot live without thinking of the dead. For example, the war victims in Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Nanjing and other places do not forgive us even today. In this situation, it is necessary to evaluate Buddhist tradition in Japan that shows us the way how to go with the dead. In this paper, first, I will introduce the philosophy of Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962) who insisted the existential co-operation with the dead under the influence of Zen Buddhism and next, examine some Mahayana Buddhist sutras from the viewpoint of the relation between the living and the dead. (shrink)

人間は本来的に、公共の秩序に収まらない何かを抱えて生きる存在である。常識として通用してきた倫理道徳では対応できない問題が起きたとき、そこに見えてくるのは何なのか。“人間”の領域、つまり倫理的な世界をは み出したところで出会う「他者」、さらにはその極限にある「死者」との関わりを、著者は、古典的な仏教学ではない“現代に生きる仏教”の視座から、根源的に問い直そうとする。倫理を超える新たな地平を示すと同時に 、日本仏教の思想的成果を丹念に抽出し、それを広範な哲学・思想史の中に位置づけ、鍛え直した著書。初版刊行後の理論的展開を書き下ろしで加えた、待望の文庫版。.

1. Meiji shisōka ron -- 2. Kindai Nihon to Bukkyō.

末木文美士、中島隆博、若松英輔、安藤礼二、中島岳志、死者と霊性をめぐっての白熱した討議をまとめる。.

日本において「近代仏教」はどのように形成され、展開していったのか。本書は、こうした問いを念頭に、思想と実践の両面から、代表的知識人の営為に光をあてる。また、浄土、日蓮、禅という三系統について、それぞれ の複雑な思想動向を取りあげていく。幅広い視点から、近代仏教の諸相をとらえた充実の書。.

哲学を厳密さの檻から解放し、日本の近代思想を土台に豊かな思索の実践を繰り広げる。.

Given the known hazards of nuclear energy in seismically active Japan after the Fukushima meltdowns as well as the presence of viable conservation and renewable energy options, the question of Japan’s stalled energy transition warrants critical interrogation. To better understand why, after Fukushima, Japan’s energy policy trajectory maintained the nuclear status quo and an increased reliance on fossil fuels, this article employs network and historical analyses to examine the confluence of post-Fukushima political forces connected to Japan’s nuclear energy sector. Our (...) novel network dataset combines with historical analysis to identify a dense network of overlapping executives and officials in Japan that forge long-term ties between the nuclear energy industry, the state, and the leading business federation in Japan. Following the 3.11 disaster and the meltdowns at the Fukushima-Daiichi facility, a long-standing nuclear safety myth and a tightly networked nuclear energy industrial complex provided an ideological and structural context to re-legitimize nuclear energy in spite of widespread public concern. Instead of a bold, ecologically rational policy to quickly phase out nuclear power and phase in renewable energy, well-worn class and state networks aligned to recommit Japan to a nuclear-reliant energy path. These findings support a theoretical synthesis around our concept of an energy industrial complex with applications in environmental and political sociology. (shrink)

Although advance care planning can lead to more patient-centered care, the communication around it can be challenging in acute care hospitals, where saving a life or shortening hospitalization is important priorities. Our qualitative study in an acute care hospital in Japan revealed when specifically physicians and nurses start communication to facilitate ACP. Seven physicians and 19 nurses responded to an interview request, explaining when ACP communication was initiated with 32 patients aged 65 or older. Our qualitative approach employed descriptive analysis (...) to identify major themes, which included “initiation by patients” and “initiation by healthcare professionals.” In the latter case, seven specific triggers were identified: when the patients’ medical condition changed in terms of symptom relief, when the patients’ medical condition changed in terms of prognostic prediction, when serious events occurred, when a choice of treatment was presented, when the location for end-of-life care was chosen, when the patients’ cognitive function deteriorated, and when serious events settled down. Within this group of healthcare professionals, physicians were more focused on changes in their patients’ medical condition, whereas nurses focused more on their patients’ desire for a long-term perspective. Nurses encouraged patients to consider ACP themselves, which developed into an approach to respect patients’ autonomy. In acute care hospitals, it appeared to be desirable to have an early discussion where patients could understand the significance ACP, which would matter even after their discharge from the hospital. (shrink)

LetL be any modal or tense logic with the finite model property. For eachm, definer L (m) to be the smallest numberr such that for any formulaA withm modal operators,A is provable inL if and only ifA is valid in everyL-model with at mostr worlds. Thus, the functionr L determines the size of refutation Kripke models forL. In this paper, we will give an estimation ofr L (m) for some linear modal and tense logicsL.

As interpersonal, racial, social, and international conflicts intensify in the world, it is important to safeguard the mental health of individuals affected by them. According to a Buddhist notion “if you want others to be happy, practice compassion; if you want to be happy, practice compassion,” compassion practice is an intervention to cultivate conflict-proof well-being. Here, compassion practice refers to a form of concentrated meditation wherein a practitioner attunes to friend, enemy, and someone in between, thinking, “I’m going to help (...) them.” The compassion meditation is based on Buddhist philosophy that mental suffering is rooted in conceptual thoughts that give rise to generic mental images of self and others and subsequent biases to preserve one’s egoism, blocking the ultimate nature of mind. To contextualize compassion meditation scientifically, we adopted a Bayesian active inference framework to incorporate relevant Buddhist concepts, including mind, compassion, aggregates, suffering, reification, conceptual thoughts, and superimposition. In this framework, a person is considered a Bayesian Engine that actively constructs phenomena based on the aggregates of forms, sensations, discriminations, actions, and consciousness. When the person embodies rigid beliefs about self and others’ identities and the resulting ego-preserving bias, the person’s Bayesian Engine malfunctions, failing to use prediction errors to update prior beliefs. To counter this problem, after recognizing the causes of sufferings, a practitioner of the compassion meditation aims to attune to all others equally, friends and enemies alike, suspend identity-based conceptual thoughts, and eventually let go of any identity-grasping belief and ego-preserving bias that obscure reality. We present a brain model for the Bayesian Engine of three components: Relation-Modeling, Reality-Checking, and Conflict-Alarming, which are subserved by the Default-Mode Network, Frontoparietal Network and Ventral Attention Network, and Salience Network, respectively. Upon perceiving conflicts, the strengthening or weakening of ego-preserving bias will critically depend on whether the SN up-regulates the DMN or FPN/VAN, respectively. We propose that compassion meditation can strengthen brain regions that are conducive for suspending prior beliefs and enhancing the attunements to the counterparts in conflicts. (shrink)