In the midst of globalization, English is regarded as an international language, or Lingua Franca, but learning it as a second language (L2) remains still difficult to speakers of other languages. This is true especially for the speakers of languages distantly related to English such as Japanese. In this sense, exploring neural basis for translation between the first language (L1) and L2 is of great interest. There have been relatively many previous researches revealing brain activation patterns during translations between L1 (...) and English as L2. These studies, which focused on language translation with close or moderate linguistic distance (LD), have suggested that the Broca area (BA 44/45) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC; BA 46) may play an important role on translation. However, the neural mechanism of language translation between Japanese and English, having large LD, has not been clarified. Thus, we used functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate the brain activation patterns during word translation between Japanese and English. We also assessed the effects of translation directions and word familiarity. All participants’ first language was Japanese and they were learning English. Their English proficiency was advanced or elementary. We selected English and Japanese words as stimuli based on the familiarity for Japanese people. Our results showed that the brain activation patterns during word translation largely differed depending on their English proficiency. The advanced group elicited greater activation on the left prefrontal cortex around the Broca’s area while translating words with low familiarity, but no activation was observed while translating words with high familiarity. On the other hand, the elementary group evoked greater activation on the left temporal area including the superior temporal gyrus (STG) irrespective of the word familiarity. These results suggested that different cognitive process could be involved in word translation corresponding to English proficiency in Japanese learners of English. These difference on the brain activation patterns between the advanced and elementary group may reflect the difference on the cognitive loads depending on the levels of automatization in one’s language processing. (shrink)

Negative attitudes toward robots are considered as one of the psychological factors preventing humans from interacting with robots in the daily life. To verify their influence on humans‘ behaviors toward robots, we designed and executed experiments where subjects interacted with Robovie, which is being developed as a platform for research on the possibility of communication robots. This paper reports and discusses the results of these experiments on correlation between subjects’ negative attitudes and their behaviors toward robots. Moreover, it discusses influences (...) of gender and experience of real robots on their negative attitudes and behaviors toward robots. (shrink)

To investigate whether people with social anxiety have less actual and “anticipatory” anxiety when interacting with a robot compared to interacting with a person, we conducted a 2 × 2 psychological experiment with two factors: social anxiety and interaction partner. The experiment was conducted in a counseling setting where a participant played the role of a client and the robot or the confederate played the role of a counselor. First, we measured the participants’ social anxiety using the Social Avoidance and (...) Distress Scale, after which, we measured their anxiety at two specific moments: “anticipatory anxiety” was measured after they knew that they would be interacting with a robot or a human confederate, and actual anxiety was measured after they actually interacted with the robot or confederate. Measurements were performed using the Profile of Mood States and the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory. The results indicated that participants with higher social anxiety tended to feel less “anticipatory anxiety” and tension when they knew that they would be interacting with robots compared with humans. Moreover, we found that interaction with a robot elicited less tension compared with interaction with a person regardless of the level of social anxiety. (shrink)

A great deal of research has been performed recently on robots that feature functions for communicating with humans in daily life, i.e., communication robots. We consider it important to develop methods to measure humans’ attitudes and emotions that may prevent them from interaction with communication robots, as indices to study short-term and long-term interaction between humans and communication robots. This study is aimed at exploring the influence of negative attitudes toward robots, focusing on applications of communication robots to daily-life services. (...) First, a scale of negative attitudes toward robots consisting of three subordinate scales, “negative attitudes toward situations of interaction with robots,” “negative attitudes toward the social influence of robots,” and “negative attitudes toward emotions in interaction with robots,” was developed based on a data sample comprising of 263 Japanese university students. This scale was administered to 240 Japanese university students to confirm its validity and reliability. In this paper, we report on the results of analyses of these data samples. Moreover, we discuss some future problems including a comparison of attitudes toward robots between nations. (shrink)

We consider several variants of Keisler’s isomorphism theorem. We separate these variants by showing implications between them and cardinal invariants hypotheses. We characterize saturation hypotheses that are stronger than Keisler’s theorem with respect to models of size $\aleph _1$ and $\aleph _0$ by $\mathrm {CH}$ and $\operatorname {cov}(\mathsf {meager}) = \mathfrak {c} \land 2^{<\mathfrak {c}} = \mathfrak {c}$ respectively. We prove that Keisler’s theorem for models of size $\aleph _1$ and $\aleph _0$ implies $\mathfrak {b} = \aleph _1$ and $\operatorname (...) {cov}(\mathsf {null}) \le \mathfrak {d}$ respectively. As a consequence, Keisler’s theorem for models of size $\aleph _0$ fails in the random model. We also show that for Keisler’s theorem for models of size $\aleph _1$ to hold it is not necessary that $\operatorname {cov}(\mathsf {meager})$ equals $\mathfrak {c}$. (shrink)

構造主義からアクターネットワークセオリーまで、哲学と人類学という二つの知的実践は交錯してきた。その現代的な意義を考える。 ドゥルーズ=ガタリ、メルロ=ポンティ、サルトル、モース、デュルケム、ヴィヴェイロス・デ・カストロ、デスコラ、ストラザーン――いずれも「自然」をめぐり、レヴィ=ストロースの神話論理の再解釈や「構造」の捉 えなおしとして進行してきた哲学と人類学について、思考様式の違いや歴史的な影響関係、主題の反復を浮き彫りにする。.

偶然性や身体論などこれまで論じてきた問題にもさらに深いまなざしを向けつづける著者による集大成。.

本書は、日中両国の世界への対応の差異が典型的に表れた幕末・清末の歴史を「託古改制」という新たなキーワードを用い、明治維新のシナリオを書いた知られざる思想家・横井小楠、明治維新に範をとった戊戌変法を開始 せしめた清の思想家・康有為を始め、佐久間象山と馮桂芬、吉田松陰と章炳麟という三組六人の大思想家の比較を行い、「儒教文化圏・漢字文化圏」などと概括されがちな両国の差異を浮き上がらせ、東アジアの将来の展望 に資することを目指すものである。.

Krueger & Funder (K&F) spend too much time on their critique of some classic studies in social psychology. They should have spent more time developing their constructive ideas about better methodologies and, especially, better conceptual foundations for the field. We endorse their exhortation to consider social behavior in its ecologically adaptive context, and we present a few ideas of our own about how to develop a more comprehensive conceptual framework.

Little is known about health of the growing subpopulation of the working poor in Japan. We aimed to evaluate health status and healthcare utilization in relation to income among Japanese working adults. We conducted a one-month prospective cohort study using a health diary in working adults from a nationally representative random sample in Japan. Based on the government criterion, the working poor group was defined as earning an equivalent annual income of less than 1.48 million Japanese-yen. For health status, we (...) measured symptomatic episodes and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). For healthcare utilization, we measured frequencies of visits to a physician or pharmacy, and use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). We constructed multiple linear regression models for these measures adjusted for age, gender, and co-morbidity, using annual equivalent income as a 4-level categorical variable. (shrink)

According to the widespread use of Web Services, composition of multiple services is becoming a main issue. BPEL was proposed as a Web Services workflow language in this context. Then, in many cases we need much interactions between a service requester and a BPEL process execution engine. However for the end user under the ubiquitous environment where the service is executed with a cellular phone or PDA, the interaction means simply a burden. The reason is: (1)it is hard to carry (...) out the operation manually, (2)a network connection is unstable, (3)a connection charge is relatively high. In this paper, we propose middle agents between ubiquitous users and Web Services. The agents analyze BPEL, extract the interaction which the ubiquitous users would need, then produce action operators. It makes a plan in order to achieve a service request from the user. Here the planning agent can reduce operations of the user by collecting the necessary information at the beginning which will be inputted during the IP execution. We show the architecture of the agents and an example regarding ATM service, then evaluate the number of inputs, the performance, and the quantity of data transmitted on network. Finally, we consider adaptability of this approach to generic BPEL flow. (shrink)

Objectives: To analyse the decision making for end of life care for patients with cancer at a teaching hospital in Japan at two periods 10 years apart.Design and setting: Retrospective study conducted in a 550 bed community teaching hospital in Okinawa, Japan.Patients: There were 124 terminally ill cancer patients admitted either in 1989 and 1999 for end of life care with sufficient data to permit analysis.Main measurements: Basic demographic data, notification to the patient that he or she had cancer, patient (...) involvement in do not resuscitate orders, and various medical interventions which were performed in the month prior to the patient’s death were evaluated.Results: In 1989 none of the patients were notified of their diagnosis; in 1999 five patients were informed . Of the 113 patients with a written DNR order, none were involved in consenting to the DNR order. In the month before death, patients in both groups received non-palliative treatments such as feeding tube placements , total parenteral nutrition , and intravenous albumin infusion . Morphine use increased significantly in 1999 compared with the 1989 group.Conclusions: The majority of patients dying of cancer were still not informed of their diagnosis and were seldom involved in DNR decision making at a teaching hospital in Japan. There was no change in the number of potentially futile interventions that were performed but morphine use increased. Modern ethical education is urgently needed in Japanese medical practice to improve decision making process in the end of life care. (shrink)

For the first time, in Hume and Smith, ‘sympathy’ occupies a central position as the principle of moral judgment. The key to solving the relationship between sympathy and economic thought lies in the theory of justice. Hume and Smith inherited Hutcheson’s criticism of the Hobbesian selfish system and considered humans selfish and social. For both, the relationship between selfishness and sympathy is neither a contradiction nor a subordinate structure in which selfishness ultimately dominates sympathy. In this joint project, Hume’s institutional (...) utilitarianism could justify Smith’s economic theories and provide Smith’s theory of government with a proper philosophical foundation. I argue that this is particularly significant because Smith himself failed to provide the foundation in areas where the idea of public utility plays a vital role, such as in the critical case of national defence and the decline of martial spirit. (shrink)

In the present study, qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted to explore differences between stakeholders in expectations of gendered robots, with a focus on their specific application in the field of psychotherapy. In Study I, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 experts in psychotherapy to extract categories of opinions regarding the use of humanoid robots in the field. Based on these extracted categories, in Study II, an online questionnaire survey was conducted to compare concrete expectations of the use of humanoid (...) robots in psychotherapy between 50 experts and 100 nonexperts in psychotherapy. The results revealed that compared with the female participants, the male participants tended to prefer robots with a female appearance. In addition, compared with the experts, the nonexperts tended not to relate the performance of robots with their gender appearance, and compared with the other participant groups, the female expert participants had lower expectations of the use of robots in the field. These findings suggest that differences between stakeholders regarding the expectations of gendered robots should be resolved to encourage their acceptance in a specific field. (shrink)

For each intermediate propositional logicJ, J * denotes the least predicate extension ofJ. By the method of canonical models, the strongly Kripke completeness ofJ *+D(=x(p(x)q)xp(x)q) is shown in some cases including:1. J is tabular, 2. J is a subframe logic. A variant of Zakharyashchev's canonical formulas for intermediate logics is introduced to prove the second case.

We generalize the incompleteness proof of the modal predicate logic Q-S4+ p p + BF described in Hughes-Cresswell [6]. As a corollary, we show that, for every subframe logic Lcontaining S4, Kripke completeness of Q-L+ BF implies the finite embedding property of L.

「順序よく漏れなく」、「人が関わるあらゆる事柄の基本的な筋道について、言葉による地図を作成すること」。松永澄夫の哲学。.

In Matter and Memory, Bergson identifies a problem with perception and resolves it by arguing that matter is an aggregate of images. However, it is unclear whether and how Bergson justifies this thesis, and interpreters differ considerably on this question. This paper formulates and analyzes Bergson’s arguments for this thesis in Chapter 1 of Matter and Memory. Bergson presents five arguments, some of which echo arguments in early modern philosophy. They jointly compose a substantive, well-structured defense of his thesis. This (...) paper also illuminates an aspect of Bergson’s method that departs from his famous reliance on intuition and is grounded in his conception of the clarity required in philosophy. (shrink)

We found that children sometimes abused a social robot placed in a shopping mall hallway. They verbally abused the robot, repeatedly obstructed its path, and sometimes even kicked and punched the robot. To investigate the reasons for the abuse, we conducted a field study in which we interviewed visiting children who exhibited serious abusive behaviors, including physical contact. We analyzed interview contents to determine whether the children perceived the robot as human-like, why they abused it, and whether they thought that (...) the robot would suffer from their abusive behavior. We obtained valid interviews from 23 children over 13 days of observations. We found that 1) the majority of the children engaged in abuse because they were curious about the robot’s reactions or enjoyed abusing it and considered it human-like, and 2) about half of them believed the robot was capable of perceiving their abusive behaviors. (shrink)

Shuzo Kuki is a Japanese philosopher, belonging to the Kyoto school, who lived about a hundred years ago. He learned philosophy in Europe and developed an original theory of contingency, by accommodating the Asiatic way of thinking on the one hand, and Western philosophy on the other. In this article, I show that we can find similarities between his theory of contingency and the philosophy of Deleuze, especially in regard to the subject of temporality and eternal return. Needless to say, (...) the theory of the third time is a crucial theme in Difference and Repetition, and is closely related to the time of eternity, and the original or primitive contingency. Taking into consideration these aspects of time is indispensable in examining in depth the concepts of difference and virtuality. Kuki's theory of contingency, which incorporates early twentieth-century European philosophy, elucidates these concepts in an unexpected way. Therefore, my aim in this article is not to attempt a comparison between Eastern and Western thought by quoting Deleuze, but to illustrate a hidden lineage of thought, which runs from the nineteenth century into the philosophy of virtuality of the twentieth century. This same lineage appears in Japan in Kuki's theory, and Deleuze's thought is, at least in one aspect, a modern manifestation of the same roots. (shrink)

The concept of the ‘island’ constitutes a unique theme in Deleuze's thought: desert islands and perversion, continental islands and isolated islands, the connection between the emergence of life and orogeny, the relationship between imagination and islands, and the sea as a rhizome. To think from this point of view on Japan, it is neither an isolated island nor an oceanic island in Deleuze's sense. Rather, it is a place where a unique stratum of thought has accumulated like a multilayered plateau. (...) Japan has often been portrayed as a malignant kind of rhizome, as an oriental land, a land of animism. However, the Japanese islands, as part of the Pacific Rim island arc, and, on the other hand, as a place which bears the forces from the continent, can also be depicted as a manifold location, bearing the rhizome called the sea in a unique way. Not only does it have only a virtual signifier = signifiant of One-ness, but it can also be said to hold multiple strata of signifiers = signifiants within its arc between the continent and ocean. My aim in this paper is to explicate this place called ‘Japan’ as a case study of what Deleuze calls geophilosophy in his last book with Guattari, What is Philosophy? (shrink)

これまでの哲学が再三にわたって論じてきた「私」という問題。しかしそこには、大きな見落としがあったのではないか?産まれる、子をはらむ、産む、死んでいく、だけど誰かが残る。こうしたことを、それ自身として真 正面からとらえる。そのための哲学が、ここからはじまる。.

Researchers and non-commercial institutions negotiate complex legislation and guidance when planning and conducting research studies. The documents and processes required differ across nations and their regulatory bodies and it can be challenging to conduct an international study, especially for non-commercial organisations. In this study, colleagues from Japan and the UK worked closely together focusing on the legislation, organisations, trial processes, ethics review and quality assurance frameworks of clinical trials in two countries, the UK, demonstrated on the model of practices in (...) the University of Bristol and University Hospital Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, and Japan, based on the model in Kyoto University Hospital. Although the ICH tripartite guidelines were developed with participation from both the EU and Japan the set-up and approval processes for clinical trials are different between the two countries while the expectations for quality assurance are similar. We will argue that the f... (shrink)

This paper reports the results of questionnaire-based research conducted at an exhibition of interactive humanoid robots that was held at the Osaka Science Museum, Japan. The aim of this exhibition was to investigate the feasibility of communication robots connected to a ubiquitous sensor network, under the assumption that these robots will be practically used in daily life in the not-so-distant future. More than 90,000 people visited the exhibition. A questionnaire was given to the visitors to explore their opinions of the (...) robots. Statistical analysis was done on the data of 2,301 respondents. It was found that the visitors’ opinions varied according to age; younger visitors did not necessarily like the robots more than elderly visitors; positive evaluation of the robots did not necessarily conflict with negative evaluations such as anxiety; there was no gender difference; and there was almost no correlation between opinions and the length of time spent near the robots. (shrink)

This paper examines Hume’s theory of republicanism from the perspective of the history of ancient and modern thought. Hume criticized ancient republicanism for its implicit assumption of institutional slavery, and sought the possibility of a republican constitution based on the freedom and equality of citizens. Despite the title “Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth,” its content was a concrete theory and discussed the British society as it existed in the 18th century. His conclusion was the realistic proposal of a highly democratic (...) federal republic, which not only became the origin of the U.S. Constitution through James Madison, but also serves as a valuable source of enlightenment and inspiration for our time, when the challenges and problems of party politics and mass democracy have become extremely serious. (shrink)

Although Japanese society has become aware of some types of robots, social acceptance of robots is still not widespread. This study conducted an online questionnaire survey to investigate the relationships between experiences with and knowledge of vacuum, pet-type, and communication robots and acceptance of these robots, including the intention to use and trust. The results suggested that experiences with, knowledge of functions, and acceptance of the robots differed depending on the type of robot, and the influence of these factors on (...) acceptance of the robots also differed depending on the robot types. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Hume as Economist Hume's Philosophical Economics Luxury, Knowledge, and Economic Development Money and International Trade Quantity Theory Reconsidered Manners and Diversity of Economic Development Conclusion: Economics and Civilization References Further Reading.

This paper presents a method of measuring the vibration patterns on facial surfaces by using a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV). The surfaces of the face, neck, and body vibrate during phonation and, according to Titze ( 2001 ), these vibrations occur when aerodynamic energy is efficiently converted into acoustic energy at the glottis. A vocalist's vibration velocity patterns may therefore indicate his or her phonatory status or singing skills. LDVs enable laser-based non-contact measurement of the vibration velocity and displacement (...) of a certain point on a vibrating object, and scanning LDVs permit multipoint measurements. The benefits of scanning LDVs originate from the facts that they do not affect the vibrations of measured objects and that they can rapidly measure the vibration patterns across planes. A case study is presented herein to demonstrate the method of measuring vibration velocity patterns with a scanning LDV. The objective of the experiment was to measure the vibration velocity differences between the modal and falsetto registers while three professional soprano singers sang sustained vowels at four pitch frequencies. The results suggest that there is a possibility that pitch frequency are correlated with vibration velocity. However, further investigations are necessary to clarify the relationships between vibration velocity patterns and phonation status and singing skills. (shrink)