We treat a class of multi-person bargaining mechanisms based on games in coalitional form. For this class of games we identify properties of non-cooperative solution concepts, which are necessary and sufficient for the equilibrium outcomes to coincide with the core of the underlying coalitional form game. We view this result as a non-cooperative axiomatization of the core. In contrast to most of the literature on multi-person bargaining we avoid a precise specification of the rules of the game. Alternatively, we impose (...) properties of such games, which give rise to a large class of mechanisms, all of which are relevant for our axiomatization. (shrink)

Proof-theory has traditionally been developed based on linguistic (symbolic) representations of logical proofs. Recently, however, logical reasoning based on diagrammatic or graphical representations has been investigated by logicians. Euler diagrams were introduced in the eighteenth century. But it is quite recent (more precisely, in the 1990s) that logicians started to study them from a formal logical viewpoint. We propose a novel approach to the formalization of Euler diagrammatic reasoning, in which diagrams are defined not in terms of regions as in (...) the standard approach, but in terms of topological relations between diagrammatic objects. We formalize the unification rule, which plays a central role in Euler diagrammatic reasoning, in a style of natural deduction. We prove the soundness and completeness theorems with respect to a formal set-theoretical semantics. We also investigate structure of diagrammatic proofs and prove a normal form theorem. (shrink)

We introduce a simple inference system based on two primitive relations between terms, namely, inclusion and exclusion relations. We present a normalization theorem, and then provide a characterization of the structure of normal proofs. Based on this, inferences in a syllogistic fragment of natural language are reconstructed within our system. We also show that our system can be embedded into a fragment of propositional minimal logic.

It is well known that the modal logic S5 can be embedded in the classical predicate logic by interpreting the modal operator in terms of a quantifier. Wajsberg [10] proved this fact in a syntactic way. Mints [7] extended this result to the quantified version of S5; using a purely proof-theoretic method he showed that the quantified S5 corresponds to the classical predicate logic with one-sorted variable. In this paper we extend Mints' result to the basic modal logic S4; we (...) investigate the correspondence between the quantified versions of S4 (with and without the Barcan formula) and the classical predicate logic (with one-sorted variable). We present a purely proof-theoretic proof-transformation method, reducing an LK-proof of an interpreted formula to a modal proof. (shrink)

It is well known that the modal logic S5 can be embedded in the classical predicate logic by interpreting the modal operator in terms of a quantifier. Wajsberg proved this fact in a syntactic way. Mints extended this result to the quantified version of S5; using a purely proof-theoretic method he showed that the quantified S5 corresponds to the classical predicate logic with one-sorted variable. In this paper we extend Mints’ result to the basic modal logic S4; we investigate the (...) correspondence between the quantified versions of S4 and the classical predicate logic. We present a purely proof-theoretic proof-transformation method, reducing an LK-proof of an interpreted formula to a modal proof. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 73-84 [Access article in PDF] Music-Picture:One Form of Synthetic Art Education"Music-picture (a picture drawn through musical perception)" has been widely accepted by art educators in Japan. The purpose of this essay is to propose the making of music-pictures as art education and to put it on afirm theoretical base. I first investigate three gestalt rules: adjacency, continuance, and resemblance, all of which (...) are applicable to the senses of both seeing and hearing. Next I present research on color hearing as one version ofsynaesthesia, which is the comprehensive faculty that binds the five senses in various ways. The well-organized music-picture program by Kaoru Sasaki 1 is introduced as an example. 2 The synthetic art-educational value of music-picture will become clearer through these examinations. The Interrelations between Visual Arts and Music It is exciting that the visual arts meet music in an art class, even if these subjects are entirely different in regard to media, expressive form, the category of perception, and mastery of techniques. Put simply, Picasso's works are visible, whereas Stravinsky's pieces are invisible. Nevertheless, both powerfully convey imaginative and often narrative messages. Relying on intuition alone, I firmly believe both are interchangeable.My research on common methods of organizing both recorded music and painting was my first observation of the mutual relationship between music and visual arts. 3 But what I considered then would not be applied to art class directly because the research was based on my practical experience. It did not have any educational goals. Now I recognize that instructive approaches are necessary to lay the foundation for art classes dealing with interaction between two distinct modalities.In Japan, the Ministry of Education and Science provides the government curriculum guidelines nearly every ten years. It contains descriptions on two subjects: The visual arts and music taught in these classes are at an elementary school level and a junior high school level, both located within a compulsory education system. The new version has been in force since April 2002 (the new school term starts in April in Japan). Objectives in the two educational fields are similar and ideas of what art and music education ought to be are almost the same. The aim common to both in the government curriculum guidelines: "Through expression and appreciation, we [End Page 73] cultivate students' sentiments" invites the linking of music and the visual arts across the curriculum.Many art educators in Japan are interested in this sort of idea and have actually put it into practice. 4 They are engaged in interrelating or even unifying music and the visual arts. Additionally I know other teachers who have designed and proposed many ideas toward this crossover. Listed below are general ideas that seek to combine visual arts with music in an art class.1) Music-picture: to make a pictorial description of impressions received from music.2) Sound map: to make a map of sounds heard at a given location. Each sound is visualized by simple marks like - - -, <<<, ~~~, ooo, and xxx.3) Graphic notation: to write a score which directs the details, whole form, and progression of music by graphics instead of staff notation. Using onomatopoeias or instructions by words are common. It can be improvised, based on intuitively translating visual impacts into sounds.4) Sound toy: to make an original musical instrument of familiar easil obtained materials. For instance, a corrugated cardboard ukulele whose strings are rubber bands, a pair of maracas made of empty cans and soybeans, and so forth.5) Sound sculpture: to make sculpture producing interesting sounds (sometimes noises like creak or clatter). Extensive genres: wood sculpture, metal construction, assemblage (junk arts), kinetic arts, and so on.6) Sound installation: to make a place where participants experience sounds generated by objects or equipment.7) Multimedia: in the broad sense, to mix visuals with music; noises like jingle, tap, and bang! in daily life, or natural environmental sounds like a pit-a-pat of falling rain, a whisper of leaves, or... (shrink)

For a robot to cohabit with people, it should be able to learn people’s nonverbal social behavior from experience. In this paper, we propose a novel machine learning method for recognizing gestures used in interaction and communication. Our method enables robots to learn gestures incrementally during human–robot interaction in an unsupervised manner. It allows the user to leave the number and types of gestures undefined prior to the learning. The proposed method (HB-SOINN) is based on a self-organizing incremental neural network (...) and the hidden Markov model. We have added an interactive learning mechanism to HB-SOINN to prevent a single cluster from running into a failure as a result of polysemy of being assigned more than one meaning. For example, a sentence: “Keep on going left slowly” has three meanings such as, “Keep on (1)”, “going left (2)”, “slowly (3)”. We experimentally tested the clustering performance of the proposed method against data obtained from measuring gestures using a motion capture device. The results show that the classification performance of HB-SOINN exceeds that of conventional clustering approaches. In addition, we have found that the interactive learning function improves the learning performance of HB-SOINN. (shrink)

We shall give a direct proof of the independence result of a Buchholz style-Hydra Game on labeled finite trees. We shall show that Takeuti-Arai's cut-elimination procedure of $(\Pi^{1}_{1}-CA) + BI$ and of the iterated inductive definition systems can be directly expressed by the reduction rules of Buchholz's Hydra Game. As a direct corollary the independence result of the Hydra Game follows.

We first note that Gentzen's proof-reduction for his consistency proof of PA can be directly interpreted as moves of Kirby-Paris' Hydra Game, which implies a direct independence proof of the game . Buchholz's Hydra Game for labeled hydras is known to be much stronger than PA. However, we show that the one-dimensional version of Buchholz's Game can be exactly identified to Kirby-Paris' Game , by a simple and natural interpretation . Jervell proposed another type of a combinatorial game, by abstracting (...) Gentzen's proof-reductions and showed that his game is independent of PA. We show that this Jervell's game is actually much stronger than PA, by showing that the critical ordinal of Jervell's game is φω = ϵ0) in the Veblen hierarchy of ordinals. (shrink)

In this paper, we show the equivalence between the provability of a proof system of basic hybrid logic and that of translated formulas of the classical predicate logic with equality and explicit substitution by a purely proof–theoretic method. Then we show the equivalence of two groups of proof systems of hybrid logic: the group of labelled deduction systems and the group of modal logic-based systems.

This paper presents a new correctness criterion for marked Danos-Reginer graphs (D-R graphs, for short) of Multiplicative Cyclic Linear Logic MCLL and Abrusci's non-commutative Linear Logic MNLL. As a corollary we obtain an affirmative answer to the open question whether a known quadratic-time algorithm for the correctness checking of proof nets for MCLL and MNLL can be improved to linear-time.

This paper presents a new correctness criterion for marked Danos-Reginer graphs of Multiplicative Cyclic Linear Logic MCLL and Abrusci's non-commutative Linear Logic MNLL. As a corollary we obtain an affirmative answer to the open question whether a known quadratic-time algorithm for the correctness checking of proof nets for MCLL and MNLL can be improved to linear-time.

We introduce subsystems WLJ and SI of the intuitionistic propositional logic LJ, by weakening the intuitionistic implication. These systems are justifiable by purely constructive semantics. Then the intuitionistic implication with full strength is definable in the second order versions of these systems. We give a relationship between SI and a weak modal system WM. In Appendix the Kripke-type model theory for WM is given.

In the performing arts, such as music and dance performances, people actively interact with each other and show their exciting performances. Some studies have proposed that this interaction is a social origin of the performing arts. Some have further investigated this phenomenon based on the synchronization and coordination theory. Though the majority of these studies have focused on the collaborative context, several genres of the performing arts, such as jazz sessions and breakdance battles, have a competitive context. Several studies have (...) suggested that, in this competitive context, performers actively interact with each other and construct some correspondence. Moreover, a few recent studies focusing on competitive conversations, such as debates, have shown that, compared to people's interactions in collaborative conversations, people in competitive contexts frequently coordinate their behaviors in complicated ways. However, the interaction and coordination among performers in these competitive contexts have not been sufficiently investigated. Therefore, we investigated the coordination of expert breakdancers in battle scenes and measured their rhythmic movements using a motion capture system. We calculated the relative phase of the rhythmic movements between two dancers to investigate their coordination. The results showed that the dancers' rhythmic movements tended to synchronize in an anti-phase fashion, which means that there were similarities as well as differences between the two dancers' rhythmic movements. Furthermore, this pattern of coordination changed dynamically as time elapsed, from an in-phase synchronization or leader-follower relationships to an anti-phase synchronization and then leader-follower relationships. (shrink)

We present some ideas on logical process descriptions, using relations from the DIO (Drug Interaction Ontology) as examples and explaining how these relations can be naturally decomposed in terms of more basic structured logical process descriptions using terms from linear logic. In our view, the process descriptions are able to clarify the usual relational descriptions of DIO. In particular, we discuss the use of logical process descriptions in proving linear logical theorems. Among the types of reasoning supported by DIO one (...) can distinguish both (1) basic reasoning about general structures in reality and (2) the domain-specific reasoning of experts. We here propose a clarification of this important distinction between (realist) reasoning on the basis of an ontology and rule-based inferences on the basis of an expert’s view. (shrink)

The thesis according to which the meaning of a mathematical sentence is given by its proof was held by both Wittgenstein and the intuitionists, following Heyting and Dummett. In this paper, we clarify the meaning of this thesis for Wittgenstein, showing how his position differs from that of the intuitionists. We show how the thesis originates in his thoughts, from the middle period, about proofs by induction, and we sketch his answers to a number of objections, including the idea that, (...) given the particular meaning he gives to this thesis, he cannot account for mathematical conjectures. We conclude by showing how his views find a favourable echo today in the paradigm of “proposition-as-type” and extensions of the Curry-Howard isomorphism from which this paradigm originates. (shrink)

While empathy is considered a critical determinant of the quality of medical care, growing evidence suggests it may be associated with both one’s own positive and negative moods among healthcare professionals. Meanwhile, sense of coherence plays an essential role in the improvement of both psychological and physical health. Reportedly, individual SOC reaches full stability after around age 30. The aim of this study was first to evaluate the mediatory role of SOC on the association between empathy and individual moods among (...) 114 healthcare professionals in a general hospital, and then to examine the moderating effect of age on this association. Participants completed a range of self-report demographic questionnaires, Empathy Process Scale, the 13-item Antonovsky’s SOC, and Profile of Mood States. Findings showed that SOC mediated the relations between empathy and both POMS-Vigor and POMS-Depression. Notably, moderated mediation analysis revealed that there was a significant interaction on self-vigor mood in healthcare professionals. The indirect effect of empathy on self-vigor mood through SOC was significant at over mean age “32.83.” Although there was no significant interaction with age regarding the indirect effect of empathy on self-depression mood, in the sub-category level analysis of empathy, we found a significant interaction item [age × empathy for other’s negative affect ] on SOC. This indirect effect was also significant at over mean age “32.83.” Taken, together, the current study highlighted the significant mediator of SOC on that empathy amplifies self-vigor mood and attenuates self-depression mood as a protective factor among the Japanese healthcare professionals. Some components of these processes may depend on the moderating role of age, indicating that we may need to consider the SOC development with age for more effective empathy performance interventions among healthcare professionals. (shrink)

Short interspersed repetitive elements, or SINEs, are tRNA-derived retroposons that are dispersed throughout eukaryotic genomes and can be present in well over 104 total copies. The enormous volume of SINE amplifications per organism makes them important evolutionary agents for shaping the diversity of genomes, and the irreversible, independent nature of their insertion allows them to be used for diagnosing common ancestry among host taxa with extreme confidence. As such, they represent a powerful new tool for systematic biology that can be (...) strategically integrated with other conventional phylogenetic characters, most notably morphology and DNA sequences. This review covers the basic aspects of SINE evolution that are especially relevant to their use as systematic characters and describes the practical methods of characterizing SINEs for cladogram construction. It also discusses the limits of their systematic utility, clarifies some recently published misunderstandings, and illustrates the effective application of SINEs for vertebrate phylogenetics with results from selected case studies. BioEssays 22:148–160, 2000. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

A complete list of Finsler, Scott and Boffa sets whose transitive closures contain 1, 2 and 3 elements is given. An algorithm for deciding the identity of hereditarily finite Scott sets is presented. Anti-well-founded sets, i. e., non-well-founded sets whose all maximal ∈-paths are circular, are studied. For example they form transitive inner models of ZFC minus foundation and empty set, and they include uncountably many hereditarily finite awf sets. A complete list of Finsler and Boffa awf sets with 2 (...) and 3 elements in their transitive closure is given. Next the existence of infinite descending ∈-sequences in Aczel universes is shown. Finally a theorem of Ballard and Hrbáček concerning nonstandard Boffa universes of sets is considerably extended. (shrink)

Hobbes's unusual religious views in his classical work, Leviathan, are often seen as a product of his attempt to reconcile Christianity with his philosophical materialism. Yet given Hobbes's materialistic view in his earlier works too, this explanatory framework alone is not sufficient for grasping distinctive features of Leviathan. This article remedies this lacuna by paying close attention to an understudied aspect of the development of Hobbes's religious theory from The Elements of Law to Leviathan: his treatment of the supernatural and, (...) particularly, of matters of faith known by supernatural revelation as opposed to natural reason. I argue that over time Hobbes developed an epistemological analysis of supernatural revelation and refined his argument about the sense in which matters of faith are supernatural and about the extent to which they are found in the Bible. It was not materialism per se but the more sophisticated analysis of the supernatural in Leviathan that enabled Hobbes to admit the sphere of the supernatural to a much smaller extent than in De Cive and to discuss in detail what he sees as a matter of faith and beyond the scope of philosophy in De Cive. (shrink)

Genetic epidemiology is a rapidly advancing field due to the recent availability of large amounts of omics data. In recent years, it has become possible to obtain omics information at the single‐cell level, so genetic epidemiological models need to be updated to integrate with single‐cell expression data. In this perspective paper, we propose a cell population‐based framework for genetic epidemiology in the single‐cell era. In this framework, genetic diversity influences phenotypic diversity through the diversity of cell population profiles, which are (...) defined as high‐dimensional probability distributions of the state spaces of biomolecules of each omics layer. We discuss how biomolecular experimental measurement data can capture the different properties of this distribution. In particular, single‐cell data constitute a sample from this population distribution where only some coordinate values are observable. From a data analysis standpoint, we introduce methodology for feature extraction from cell population profiles. Finally, we discuss how this framework can be applied not only to genetic epidemiology but also to systems biology. (shrink)

The laser chaos decision maker has been demonstrated to enable ultra-high-speed solutions of multiarmed bandit problems or decision-making in the GHz order. However, the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. In this paper, we analyze the chaotic dynamics inherent in experimentally observed laser chaos time series via surrogate data and further accelerate the decision-making performance via parameter optimization. We first evaluate the negative autocorrelation in a chaotic time series and its impact on decision-making detail. Then, we analyze the decision-making ability (...) using three different surrogate chaos time series to examine the underlying mechanism. We clarify that the negative autocorrelation of laser chaos improves decision-making and that the amplitude distribution of the original laser chaos time series is not optimal. Hence, we introduce a new parameter for adjusting the amplitude distribution of the laser chaos to enhance the decision-making performance. This study provides a new insight into exploiting the supremacy of chaotic dynamics in artificially constructed intelligent systems. (shrink)

This study aims to explicate interviewer and candidate conversational practices in L2 job interviews as they relate to the assessment of a candidate’s qualification for a particular position. The data consisted of 27 audio-recorded job interviews for the position of student assistant in English classes at a Japanese university. The analysis of these interactional data, conducted using conversational analysis methodology, revealed that the inadequacy of a candidate’s response is constructed by means of the interviewer’s subsequent pursuit of a relevant answer (...) from the candidate. In addition, a candidate’s ability to build rapport by providing sequentially linked joke-serious responses evoked a positive evaluation from the interviewer. The findings indicate that a candidate’s understanding of expected behaviors and ability to accommodate his or her behaviors in a manner relevant to the interaction result in a positive assessment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 73-84 [Access article in PDF] Music-Picture:One Form of Synthetic Art Education"Music-picture (a picture drawn through musical perception)" has been widely accepted by art educators in Japan. The purpose of this essay is to propose the making of music-pictures as art education and to put it on afirm theoretical base. I first investigate three gestalt rules: adjacency, continuance, and resemblance, all of which (...) are applicable to the senses of both seeing and hearing. Next I present research on color hearing as one version ofsynaesthesia, which is the comprehensive faculty that binds the five senses in various ways. The well-organized music-picture program by Kaoru Sasaki 1 is introduced as an example. 2 The synthetic art-educational value of music-picture will become clearer through these examinations. The Interrelations between Visual Arts and Music It is exciting that the visual arts meet music in an art class, even if these subjects are entirely different in regard to media, expressive form, the category of perception, and mastery of techniques. Put simply, Picasso's works are visible, whereas Stravinsky's pieces are invisible. Nevertheless, both powerfully convey imaginative and often narrative messages. Relying on intuition alone, I firmly believe both are interchangeable.My research on common methods of organizing both recorded music and painting was my first observation of the mutual relationship between music and visual arts. 3 But what I considered then would not be applied to art class directly because the research was based on my practical experience. It did not have any educational goals. Now I recognize that instructive approaches are necessary to lay the foundation for art classes dealing with interaction between two distinct modalities.In Japan, the Ministry of Education and Science provides the government curriculum guidelines nearly every ten years. It contains descriptions on two subjects: The visual arts and music taught in these classes are at an elementary school level and a junior high school level, both located within a compulsory education system. The new version has been in force since April 2002 (the new school term starts in April in Japan). Objectives in the two educational fields are similar and ideas of what art and music education ought to be are almost the same. The aim common to both in the government curriculum guidelines: "Through expression and appreciation, we [End Page 73] cultivate students' sentiments" invites the linking of music and the visual arts across the curriculum.Many art educators in Japan are interested in this sort of idea and have actually put it into practice. 4 They are engaged in interrelating or even unifying music and the visual arts. Additionally I know other teachers who have designed and proposed many ideas toward this crossover. Listed below are general ideas that seek to combine visual arts with music in an art class.1) Music-picture: to make a pictorial description of impressions received from music.2) Sound map: to make a map of sounds heard at a given location. Each sound is visualized by simple marks like - - -, <<<, ~~~, ooo, and xxx.3) Graphic notation: to write a score which directs the details, whole form, and progression of music by graphics instead of staff notation. Using onomatopoeias or instructions by words are common. It can be improvised, based on intuitively translating visual impacts into sounds.4) Sound toy: to make an original musical instrument of familiar easil obtained materials. For instance, a corrugated cardboard ukulele whose strings are rubber bands, a pair of maracas made of empty cans and soybeans, and so forth.5) Sound sculpture: to make sculpture producing interesting sounds (sometimes noises like creak or clatter). Extensive genres: wood sculpture, metal construction, assemblage (junk arts), kinetic arts, and so on.6) Sound installation: to make a place where participants experience sounds generated by objects or equipment.7) Multimedia: in the broad sense, to mix visuals with music; noises like jingle, tap, and bang! in daily life, or natural environmental sounds like a pit-a-pat of falling rain, a whisper of leaves, or... (shrink)

The English Revolution saw fierce controversy over religious toleration. While this controversy was usually associated with parliamentarians and Puritans, major contributions to the debate were also made by a few thinkers from the royalist side: Jeremy Taylor and Thomas Hobbes. Despite their prominence in the toleration debate, however, the intellectual context of the English Revolution in which their distinctive views of toleration were formed remains unclear apart from Hobbes’s association with the Independents. Here, I suggest the potential importance of Taylor (...) and Hobbes for understanding each other. While studies of Hobbes and Taylor have developed in relative isolation from each other, I show that their views of toleration have various features in common, and that these features are rarely found in their celebrated predecessor William Chillingworth or in major Puritan tolerationists. In several key respects, moreover, Hobbes and Taylor were more similar than Hobbes and the Independents. This research also helps to clarify the contribution to the toleration controversy at that time by the two leading thinkers. Furthermore, the similarities between Taylor and Hobbes, as shown in this paper, may contribute to better understanding the reception of Hobbes in the Restoration toleration debate. (shrink)

Persons with visual impairments (hereafter PVI) detect and discover obstacles and road conditions by touching with a white cane when walking on the streets. In one training session, an Orientation and Mobility specialist (hereafter SPT) guided a PVI by grasping and moving the cane that the PVI was holding. We conducted a multimodal analysis of two instruction sequences, one a "proving and achieving" demonstration (Sacks in Lectures on conversation, Blackwell, 1992) and the other a "learnable" (Zemel and Koschmann, in Discourse (...) Stud 16:163–183, 2014) demonstration. The achieving demonstration proved the assessment of the PVI's performance. In the "learnable" demonstration, the PVI was able to receive and perform the most critical part of the "learnable" of the long contact touch without the aid of talk. Sharing a single cane touch is an efficient way for both the guiding SPT and the guided PVI to jointly experience and understand the environmental features. The SPT did not need to verbally confirm that the guided touch was accountable to the PVI and seemed confident that intersubjectivity with the PVI had been established. A unique form of being with others and achieving intersubjectivity in society was identified. In traditional learning instruction, it has been assumed that the learnable is presented and communicated visually and audibly. However, through guided touch learnable is presented and conveyed effectively in the cases of this paper. It seems that the sense of touch has been considered to be just for the occasion, but this is an example of something that is not just for the occasion but is consequential, that is, usable for further occasions. The data is in Japanese. (shrink)

In a case study of the growth of cognitive science, we analyzed the activities of the Cognitive Science Society with a particular emphasis on the multidisciplinary nature of the field. Analyses of departmental affiliations, training back‐grounds, research methodology, and paper citations suggest that the journal Cognitive Science and the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society are dominated by cognitive psychology and computer science, rather than being an equal division among the constituent disciplines of cognitive science. However, at many levels, (...) a growing percentage of work was found to involve a conjunction of multiple disciplines, such that approximately 30–50% of recent work in the Cognitive Science Society is multidisciplinary. In a questionnaire study of cognitive scientists involved in collaborative research, multidisciplinarity was found to shape the research process and affect the factors associated with successful research. (shrink)

Grammatical gender is independent of biological sex for the majority of animal names (e.g., any giraffe, be it male or female, is grammatically treated as feminine). However, there is apparent semantic motivation for grammatical gender classes, especially in mapping human terms to gender. This research investigated whether this motivation affects deductive inference in native German speakers. We compared German with Japanese speakers (a language without grammatical gender) when making inferences about sex-specific biological properties. We found that German speakers tended to (...) erroneously draw inferences when the sex in the premise and grammatical gender of the target animal agreed. An over-generalization of the grammar–semantics mapping was found even when the sex of the target was explicitly indicated. However, these effects occurred only when gender-marking articles accompanied the nouns. These results suggest that German speakers project sex-specific biological properties onto gender-marking articles but not onto conceptual representations of animals per se. (shrink)

ObjectiveNoisy galvanic vestibular stimulation (nGVS) is often used to improve postural stability in disorders, such as neurorehabilitation montage. For the safe use of nGVS, we investigated whether arterial pressure (AP) and heart rate vary during static supine and slow whole-body tilt with random nGVS (0.4 mA, 0.1–640 Hz, gaussian distribution) in a healthy elderly population.MethodsThis study was conducted with a double-blind, sham-controlled, cross-over design. Seventeen healthy older adults were recruited. They were asked to maintain a static supine position on a (...) bed for 10 min, and the bed was tilted up (TU) to 70 degrees within 30 s. After maintaining this position for 3 min, the bed was passively tilted down (TD) within 30 s. Real-nGVS or sham-nGVS was applied from 4 to 15 min. The time course of mean arterial pressure (MAP) and RR interval variability (RRIV) were analyzed to estimate the autonomic nervous activity.ResultnGVS and/or time, including pre-/post-event (nGVS-start, TU, and TD), had no impact on MAP and RRIV-related parameters. Further, there was no evidence supporting the argument that nGVS induces pain, vertigo/dizziness, and uncomfortable feeling.ConclusionnGVS may not affect the AP and RRIV during static position and whole-body tilting or cause pain, vertigo/dizziness, and discomfort in the elderly. (shrink)

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The MRCT Center Post-trial Responsibilities: Continued Access to an Investigational Medicine Framework outlines a case-based, principled, stakeholder approach to evaluate and guide ethical responsibilities to provide continued access to an investigational medicine at the conclusion of a patient’s participation in a clinical trial. The Post-trial Responsibilities (PTR) Framework includes this Guidance Document as well as the accompanying Toolkit. A 41-member international multi-stakeholder Workgroup convened by the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard University (...) (MRCT Center) developed this Guidance and Toolkit. Project Motivation A number of international organizations have discussed the responsibilities stakeholders have to provide continued access to investigational medicines. The World Medical Association, for example, addressed post-trial access to medicines in Paragraph 34 of the Declaration of Helsinki (WMA, 2013): “In advance of a clinical trial, sponsors, researchers and host country governments should make provisions for post-trial access for all participants who still need an intervention identified as beneficial in the trial. This information must also be disclosed to participants during the informed consent process.” This paragraph and other international guidance documents converge on several consensus points: • Post-trial access (hereafter referred to as “continued access” in this Framework [for terminology clarification – see definitions]) is the responsibility of sponsors, researchers, and host country governments; • The plan for continued access should be determined before the trial begins, and before any individual gives their informed consent; • The protocol should delineate continued access plans; and • The plan should be transparent to potential participants and explained during the informed consent process. -/- However, there is no guidance on how to fulfill these responsibilities (i.e., linking specific responsibilities with specific stakeholders, conditions, and duration). To fill this gap, the MRCT Center convened a working group in September of 2014 to develop a framework to guide stakeholders with identified responsibilities. This resultant Framework sets forth applicable principles, approaches, recommendations and ethical rationales for PTR regarding continued access to investigational medicines for research participants. (shrink)

We will give here a purely algebraic proof of the cut elimination theorem for various sequent systems. Our basic idea is to introduce mathematical structures, called Gentzen structures, for a given sequent system without cut, and then to show the completeness of the sequent system without cut with respect to the class of algebras for the sequent system with cut, by using the quasi-completion of these Gentzen structures. It is shown that the quasi-completion is a generalization of the MacNeille completion. (...) Moreover, the finite model property is obtained for many cases, by modifying our completeness proof. This is an algebraic presentation of the proof of the finite model property discussed by Lafont [12] and Okada-Terui [17]. (shrink)

Sound-symbolism is the nonarbitrary link between the sound and meaning of a word. Japanese-speaking children performed better in a verb generalization task when they were taught novel sound-symbolic verbs, created based on existing Japanese sound-symbolic words, than novel nonsound-symbolic verbs (Imai, Kita, Nagumo, & Okada, 2008). A question remained as to whether the Japanese children had picked up regularities in the Japanese sound-symbolic lexicon or were sensitive to universal sound-symbolism. The present study aimed to provide support for the latter. (...) In a verb generalization task, English-speaking 3-year-olds were taught novel sound-symbolic verbs, created based on Japanese sound-symbolism, or novel nonsound-symbolic verbs. English-speaking children performed better with the sound-symbolic verbs, just like Japanese-speaking children. We concluded that children are sensitive to universal sound-symbolism and can utilize it in word learning and generalization, regardless of their native language. (shrink)