Eternalists believe that there is no ontological difference between the past, present and future. Thus, a challenge arises: in virtue of what does time have a direction? Some eternalists, Oaklander and Tegtmeier ) argue that the direction of time is primitive. A natural response to positing primitive directionality is the suspicion that said posit is too mysterious to do any explanatory work. The aim of this paper is to relieve primitive directionality of some of its mystery by offering a novel (...) way to understand the phenomenon in terms of the recently popularised notion of grounding. (shrink)

We present a sequent calculus of a paraconsistent logic QMPT0, which has the paraconsistent-type excluded middle law (PEML) as an initial sequent. Our system shows that the presence of PEML is essentially important for QMPT0. It also has special rules when the set of constant symbols is finite. We also discuss the cut-elimination property of our system.

Global directional eliminativists deny that there is any global direction to time. This paper provides a way to understand everyday temporal assertions—assertions made outside the physics or metaphysics rooms, the truth of which appears to require that time has a global direction—on the assumption that global directional eliminativism is true.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the financial turmoil of the US subprime loan crisis of mid-Noughties and to compare it with the Japanese asset bubble of late 1980s. While examining the two crises, it compares the monetary policies of both countries, focusing on the excess liquidity and expansion of bank loans that were seen. This paper develops several bubble indicators, including the ratio of real estate loans to total loans, the loan-to-GDP ratio, and housing affordability. In order (...) to develop these indicators, it is necessary to compare banking behavior in both Japan and the United States, as banks in both countries were making loans beyond the point of profit maximization. Property prices and monetary policy in both countries influenced banking behavior significantly. The bubble indicators developed in this paper can be used as early warning indicators for future bubbles. (shrink)

Working memory has been one of the most intensively studied systems in cognitive psychology. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Working Memory brings together world class researchers from around the world to summarise our current knowledge of this field, and directions for future research.

Recent advances in second-person neuroscience have allowed the underlying neural mechanisms involved in teaching-learning interactions to be better understood. Teaching is not merely a one-way transfer of information from teacher to student; it is a complex interaction that requires metacognitive and mentalizing skills to understand others’ intentions and integrate information regarding oneself and others. Physiotherapy involving therapists instructing patients on how to improve their motor skills is a clinical field in which teaching-learning interactions play a central role. Accumulating evidence suggests (...) that non-invasive brain stimulation modulates cognitive functions; however, NIBS approaches to teaching-learning interactions are yet to be utilized in rehabilitation. In this review, I evaluate the present research into NIBS and its role in enhancing metacognitive and mentalizing abilities; I then review hyperscanning studies of teaching-learning interactions and explore the potential clinical applications of NIBS in rehabilitation. Dual-brain stimulation using NIBS has been developed based on findings of brain-to-brain synchrony in hyperscanning studies, and it is delivered simultaneously to two individuals to increase inter-brain synchronized oscillations at the stimulated frequency. Artificial induction of brain-to-brain synchrony has the potential to promote instruction-based learning. The brain-to-brain interface, which induces inter-brain synchronization by adjusting the patient’s brain activity, using NIBS, to the therapist’s brain activity, could have a positive effect on both therapist-patient interactions and rehabilitation outcomes. NIBS based on second-person neuroscience has the potential to serve as a useful addition to the current neuroscientific methods used in complementary interventions for rehabilitation. (shrink)

A central issue in paleoanthropology is whether modern humans emerged in a single geographic area and subsequently replaced the preexisting people in other areas. Although the study of human mitochondrial DNAs supported this single‐origin and complete‐replacement model, a recent paper1 argues that humans expanded out of Africa more than once and regionally interbred. However, both the genetic antiquity and the impact of the African contribution to modern Homo sapiens are so great as to view Africa as a central place of (...) human evolution. Despite the possibility that out‐of‐Africa H. sapiens interbred with other populations, this evidence is more consistent with the uniregional hypothesis than the multiregional hypothesis of modern human origins. BioEssays 24:871–875, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

CHAPTER Issues in neural basis of consciousness An introduction Naoyuki Osaka Kyoto University, Japan Consciousness is a most important issue for human ...

The current model, based on event-related potential (ERP) studies, posits that the working-memory system is a state of activated long-term memory; this appears comprehensive, but it needs further detailed analysis of functional neural connectivity analysis within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and between the posterior and prefrontal cortex. Specifically, the role of dorsolateral PFC and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is probably critical for PFC's attentional controller. Neural implementation of the executive function in working memory appears critical to build a firm model.

The current model appears comprehensive but is probably not applicable to a writing system like Japanese, which has unspaced text, because the model is mainly based on English. The span size difference (smaller for Japanese than for English) may be a result of high-level working memory-based attentional processing and not of low-level processing. Further, neural correlates of the model are discussed in terms of central executive function.

O'Regan & Noë's (O&N's) theoretical framework for studying visual perception and awareness is intriguing. This framework, based on sensorimotor contingency, can be examined in recent visual brain theories using neuroimaging methodologies. Here, I consider how a working memory (WM) system explains the sensorimotor account of visual consciousness. I believe WM inside the brain provides at least partial support for O&N's theory.

Site‐specific phosphorylation of intermediate filament (IF) proteins on serine and threonine residues leads to alteration of the filament structure, in vitro and in vivo. Protein kinases involved in cell signaling and those activated in mitosis dynamically control spatial and temporal organization of intracellular IF phosphorylation. Thus, IF phosphorylation appears to be one of the most predominant strategies in coordinating intracellular organization of the IF network.

A challenge in human genome research is how to describe the populations being studied. The use of improper and/or imprecise terms has the potential to both generate and reinforce prejudices and to diminish the clinical value of the research. The issue of population descriptors has not attracted enough academic attention outside North America and Europe. In January 2012, we held a two-day workshop, the first of its kind in Japan, to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue between scholars in the humanities, social (...) sciences, medical sciences, and genetics to begin an ongoing discussion of the social and ethical issues associated with population descriptors. (shrink)