Eukaryotic genome DNA is wrapped around core histones and forms a nucleosome structure. Together with associated proteins and RNAs, these nucleosomes are organized three‐dimensionally in the cell as chromatin. Emerging evidence demonstrates that chromatin consists of rather irregular and variable nucleosome arrangements without the regular fiber structure and that its dynamic behavior plays a critical role in regulating various genome functions. Single‐nucleosome imaging is a promising method to investigate chromatin behavior in living cells. It reveals local chromatin motion, which reflects (...) chromatin organization not observed in chemically fixed cells. The motion data is like a gold mine. Data analyses from many aspects bring us more and more information that contributes to better understanding of genome functions. In this review article, we describe imaging of single‐nucleosomes and their tracked behavior through oblique illumination microscopy. We also discuss applications of this technique, especially in elucidating nucleolar organization in living cells. (shrink)

The origins and consequences of warfare or largescale intergroup violence have been subject of long debate. Based on exhaustive surveys of skeletal remains for prehistoric hunter-gatherers and agriculturists in Japan, the present study examines levels of inferred violence and their implications for two different evolutionary models, i.e., parochial altruism model and subsistence model. The former assumes that frequent warfare played an important role in the evolution of altruism and the latter sees warfare as promoted by social changes induced by agriculture. (...) Our results are inconsistent with the parochial altruism model but consistent with the subsistence model, although the mortality values attributable to violence between hunter-gatherers and agriculturists were comparable. (shrink)

The present study collected a larger set of three-dimensional data on human crania from the Kofun period (as well as from previous periods, i.e., the Jomon and Yayoi periods) in the Japanese archipelago (AD 250 to around 700) than previous studies. Three-dimensional geometric morphometrics were employed to investigate human migration patterns in finer-grained phases. These results are consistent with those of previous studies, although some new patterns were discovered. These patterns were interpreted in terms of demic diffusion, archaeological findings, and (...) historical evidence. In particular, the present results suggest the presence of a gradual geological cline throughout the Kofun period, although the middle period did not display such a cline. This discrepancy might reflect social changes in the middle Kofun period, such as the construction of keyhole-shaped mounds in the peripheral regions. The present study implies that a broader investigation with a larger sample of human crania is essential to elucidating macro-level cultural evolutionary processes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Leonhart Fuchs on the Importance of PicturesSachiko KusukawaIf not for the attractive plant with overhanging flute-like flowers that was named after him, Leonhart Fuchs (1501–66) is best known today as one of the pioneers of accurate representations of plants in histories of scientific illustrations.1 The pictures in Fuchs’s Remarkable Commentaries on the History of Plants (1542) have been appreciated usually for their “naturalistic” features (i.e., pictures drawn from observing (...) a plant specimen), as well as for their tendency to discard individual blemishes and portray a universal or ideal “type” of a plant where several varieties of species could be incorporated into one bush, or where various stages of the same plant may be depicted in one figure.2 On the other hand no historian of botany who has examined the text these pictures accompanied has found that such qualities as observation from nature or a sense of “ideal type” contributed to Fuchs’s theoretical understanding of [End Page 403] plants: he lacked any sense of the family genera or Linnean classification, for he had simply adopted an alphabetical ordering.3Fuchs himself considered his pictures remarkable—as he was at pains to point out—and he believed his pictures were absolutely crucial for his commentary on plants. My immediate aim in this paper, therefore, is to offer an interpretation of Fuchs’s Remarkable Commentaries on the History of Plants which does not split the work into artistically positive and botanically negative elements. As I shall argue, the uniqueness and so the controversial nature of Fuchs’s enterprise lies in the kind of argument and procedure he believed to be valid for an academic study of plants. More generally, I hope to use this reassessment of Fuchs’s work to show how pictures could be as controversial as texts and how the uses of texts and pictures together form past acts which require historical explanation. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.The Artists. Leonhart Fuchs, De historia stirpium, 1542, verso of last folio page. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.In 1542 Fuchs published his Remarkable Commentaries on the History of Plants Belaboured with Great Expense and Vigilance with More than Five Hundred Live Images of Plants Attached. It begins with a picture of Fuchs, the author, at the age of forty-one and ends with that of the artists (fig. 1). Although the division of labor depicted here seems to have been a standard one for printing illustrated books in this period,4 it is unusual that we know their names. Albrecht Meyer did the drawings from life, Heinrich Füllmaurer transferred the drawings to woodblocks, and Veit Rudolf Speckle cut those woodblocks.5 Fuchs was proud of one of the artists in particular: “the woodcutter [sculptor] Veit Rudolf Speckle, by far the best in Strasbourg, excellently imitated the admirable industry of painters: he has so skilfully expressed the outlines of each picture by carving [sculpendo] that he seems to compete with the painter for glory and victory.”6 A comparison between the painter and the sculptor had been a favorite topic in the Renaissance genre of paragone—Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Castiglione, and Michaelangelo composed treatises on it—where the [End Page 404] relative merits of various mimetic arts were discussed.7 Fuchs’s comment on Speckle is more nuanced, however, than a polite competition between the arts over their mimetic skills: Fuchs announces that Speckle is worthy of praise in producing a picture—normally the domain of the painter (pictor)—with the specialized skill of carving of the cutter (sculptor). This is surely an appreciation of the particular skill involved in producing replicable pictures for printed books, just as Erasmus had, a generation earlier, acknowledged in Albrecht Dürer’s prowess at engraving the potential for reproducibility in a print culture.8 Indeed, of the artists involved in printing, it was the woodcutter who could expect to be paid most in this period—nearly fifteen times more than the artist who originally drew the pictures.9 Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2.Atriplex. Theodore Dorsten, Botanicon, 1540, fol. 35r. Reproduced... (shrink)

Dienes & Perner's analysis provides a clear theoretical justification for using a demonstration of volitional control as a criterion for conscious awareness. However, in memory tasks, the converse does not hold: A phenomenological awareness of a memory episode can arise involuntarily, even when the task does not require retrieval of the episode. The varying amounts of volitional retrieval required by different memory tasks need to be recognized.

Recent studies have fruitfully examined the intersection between early modern science and visual culture by elucidating the functions of images in shaping and disseminating scientific knowledge. Given its rich archival sources, it is possible to extend this line of research in the case of the Royal Society to an examination of attitudes towards images as artifacts—manufactured objects worth commissioning, collecting, and studying. Drawing on existing scholarship and material from the Royal Society Archives, I discuss Fellows’ interests in prints, drawings, varnishes, (...) colorants, images made out of unusual materials, and methods of identifying the painter from a painting. Knowledge of production processes of images was important to members of the Royal Society, not only as connoisseurs and collectors, but also as those interested in a Baconian mastery of material processes, including a “history of trades.” Their antiquarian interests led to discussion of painters’ styles, and they gradually developed a visual memorial to an institution through portraits and other visual records. (shrink)

When people speak about “communication barriers”, what they usually think about are such things as the limitations set by human nature itself, or the constraints that are inherent in the tools we use for communicating. As an example of the first, consider the limited range of the naked human voice; for the second, we may think of the limitations imposed by such primitive communicative devices as the bonfire, the heliograph, or an old-fashioned megaphone.Our contribution draws attention to the fact that, (...) despite enormous advances on the technological side of human communication (such as demonstrated by the existence and use of computers as communication devices), there still are some barriers to be removed as far as the human side is concerned. We call these barriers the “stumble-blocks of the mind”. Their existence is demonstrated by the study of two case stories, which show that understanding the communicative implications of computerizing information is more important than increased emphasis on ever fancier and more expensive hardware products.The next question has to do with the reasons for these “stumbling blocks” to occur. Current communicative and linguistic theoretical findings are used in an effort to explain and solve the communicative dilemmas that are encountered in the organization of our communication, among others in the area of human-computer interface. In particular, the notion of “privacy” in speech acting is suggested as an overlooked aspect, and the notion of “information transfer” is replaced by that of “creating mental activity”.Finally, some conclusions are drawn, and a number of practical applications are offered. (shrink)

Background Advance care planning (ACP) is a process in which adults engage in an ongoing dialogue about future medical treatment and care. Though ACP is recommended to improve the quality of end-of-life care, the details of the dialogue experience in ACP are unknown. Objective To explore participants’ experiences of dialogue in an ACP educational program that encouraged them to discuss the value of a way of life. Research design This qualitative descriptive study used the focus group interview method. Data were (...) analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Participants and research context A dialogue-based ACP educational program was conducted in four regions in Japan for local citizens to discuss the value of their way of life. A total of 66 individuals (mean age = 55.5 ± 17.2 years; 50 women and 16 men) participated in focus group interviews. Ethical considerations This study was approved by the Ethical Review Committee of Tokyo Women’s Medical University (no. 4723) and Kyoto University (no. R2099). Findings Five main themes were extracted: discussing one’s thoughts with others in a considerate manner, reflecting on one’s way of life through others, feeling a sense of connection with others through storytelling, realizing the difficulties of talking about “what if” topics, and turning one’s eyes toward the future through the dialogue. These themes were interrelated and illustrated the complexity of the experience of discussing values. Conclusions The results suggest that dialogue in ACP is useful in clarifying values. They also indicated the need for dealing with the ethical challenges of discussing value and the importance of caring for the interlocutor to have a safe dialogue. In the ACP process, safety in dialogue may improve readiness in ACP, and health practitioners who support ACP need to address the ethical challenges entailing dialogue about values. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effects of group interaction in a storytelling situation for children using two robots: a reader robot and a listener robot as a side-participant. We developed a storytelling system that consists of a reader robot, a listener robot, a display, a gaze model, a depth sensor, and a human operator who responds and provides easily understandable answers to the children’s questions. We experimentally investigated the effects of using a listener robot and either one or two children during (...) a storytelling situation on the children’s preferences and their speech activities. Our experimental results showed that the children preferred storytelling with the listener robot. Although two children obviously produced more speech than one child, the listener robot discouraged the children’s speech regardless of whether one or two were listening. (shrink)

The evolution of altruism in human societies has been intensively investigated in social and natural sciences. A widely acknowledged recent idea is the “parochial altruism model,” which suggests that inter- group hostility and intragroup altruism can coevolve through lethal intergroup conflicts. The current article critically examines this idea by reviewing research relevant to intergroup conflicts in human evolutionary history from evolutionary biology, psychology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology. After a brief intro- duction, section 2 illustrates the mathematical model of parochial altruism (...) and some critiques of the model and its interpretation, primarily from an evolutionary biology point of view. Section 3 delves into the archaeological evidence of prehistoric intergroup conflicts in the Japanese archipelago’s Jomon and Yayoi periods, Europe’s Mesolithic period, and North America’s Pacific period as counter examples of the paro- chial altruism model. In section 4, the ethnographies of intergroup relationships and conflicts reveal that intergroup relationships in many ethnic groups are not as simple as the assumption in the mathematical model of parochial altruism. In section 5, we outline psychological research on intergroup conflicts which suggest that intergroup hostility and ingroup altruism are not necessarily correlated. In conclusion, we argue that the assumption and parameter settings of the parochial altruism model are inconsistent with empirical data. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to answer the question whether Descartes had read Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism. At first glance, the question seems trivial. This question, however, is of historico-philosophical significance in that it reveals, even if only partially, what Descartes, who is regarded as the father of early modern philosophy, inherited from his earlier intellectual legacy in formulating his own philosophy. I first compare statements from Sextus’s Outlines with corresponding statements from Descartes’s writings to identify their similarities in (...) terms of content. This comparison focuses on their views regarding four subjects: the syllogistic, moral guidelines, the use of definitions, and true opinions. I then analyse and discuss whether the degree of similarity between these sets of statements is sufficient to conclude that the particular work of Descartes is based on Sextus’s arguments. This preliminary study can only provide indirect evidence that Descartes had read Sextus, for a thorough clarification of whether he read anything other than the works he himself stated that he had read (e.g., Cicero, Suárez), would require further circumstantial evidence, however weak it may be. (shrink)

The causes of prehistoric inter-group violence have been a subject of long-standing debate in archaeology, an- thropology, and other disciplines. Although population pressure has been considered as a major factor, due to the lack of available prehistoric data, few studies have directly examined its effect so far. In the present study, we used data on skeletal remains from the middle Yayoi period of the Japanese archipelago, where archaeologists argued that an increase of inter-group violence in this period could be explained (...) by a population-pressure hy- pothesis. We quantitatively examine the effect of population pressure on the frequency of inter-group violence by compiling an exhaustive data set. We collected demographic information based on burial jars (kamekan) and the frequency of violence based on the ratio of injured individuals. The results are consistent with the hypothesis, i. e., high population density can promote inter-group violence. (shrink)

We agree with Frost that the variety of orthographies in the world's languages complicates the task of Frost suggests that orthographic processing must therefore differ between orthographies. We suggest that the same basic orthographic processes are applied to all languages. Where languages differ is in what the reader must do with the results of orthographic processing.

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)

Descartes insists, “[...] there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me [...]” (AT-VII, 25; CSM-II, 17). In what way can we draw evidence that our existence can be drawn from our being deceived? The interpretations that the earlier studies have shown is not a monolith. Then I will search for some inherent characteristics of deception, and analyse the construction of the (...) reasoning, “if a deceiver deceives me, I exist.” To be concrete, I show: 1) that it is not “I exist” but “I think” that is concluded from the supposition “a deceiver deceives me/I am deceived by a deceiver”; 2) that the attributions of the self as a thinking thing, i.e. understanding, affirming, and denying (AT-VII, 28; CSM-II, 19), are discovered in the very supposition of a deceiver. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to bring an end to the interpretative dispute on Descartes’s cog­ito: is the cogito known by intuition or by inference? There have been several studies based on both analytical and historical approaches to the dispute, and it seems that we have exhausted all interpretations. Nevertheless, I wish to revisit this dispute, as it ap­pears that the previous studies have overlooked Descartes’s use of words and phrases, which is the most significant for understanding his various (...) discourses on the cogito con­sistently. In this paper, I focus on the terms which Descartes uses to indicate the varied status of the cogito, such as ‘haec cognitio, ego cogito, ergo sum’, ‘hanc propositionem, ego cogito, ergo sum’, ‘hanc conclusionem: cogito, ergo sum’, and so on; Descartes changes carefully the terms in each of the cogito arguments. By focusing on these terms, I try to interpret Descartes’s explanations consistently. (shrink)

This volume offers an important re-evaluation of early modern philosophy. It takes issue with the received notion of a 'revolution' in philosophical thought in the 17th-century, making the case for treating the 16th and 17th centuries together. Taking up Charles Schmitt's formulation of the many 'Aristotelianisms' of the period, the papers bring out the variety and richness of the approaches to Aristotle, rather than treating his as a homogeneous system of thought. Based on much new research, they provide case studies (...) of how philosophers used, developed, and reacted to the framework of Aristotelian logic, categories and distinctions, and demonstrate that Aristotelianism possessed both the flexibility and the dynamism to exert a continuing impact - even among such noted 'anti-Aristotelians' as Descartes and Hobbes. This constant engagement can indeed be termed 'conversations with Aristotle'. (shrink)

Previous studies have revealed the effect of interoceptive accuracy, a behavioral measure of the ability to feel physiological states and regulation for that, which origin emotion on decision-making such as gambling. Given that decision-making in moral dilemma situations is affected by emotion, it seems that IAcc also affects moral decision-making. The present study preliminarily investigates whether IAcc affects decision-making and emotional ratings such as regret for one’s own choices in moral dilemma situations. IAcc did not affect moral choice, but affected (...) regret ratings for one’s moral choice in portions of dilemma scenarios. Moreover, people with higher IAcc make deontological choices more rapidly than those with lower IAcc in self-related dilemma scenarios. These results suggest that people with higher IAcc feel stronger emotional conflicts about utilitarian choices but weaker conflicts about deontological choices than people with lower IAcc depending on the moral dilemma scenario. (shrink)

It has been commonly claimed that prehistoric warfare in Japan began in the Yayoi period. Population increases due to the introduction of agriculture from the Korean Peninsula to Japan resulted in the lack of land for cultivation and resources for the population, eventually triggering competition over land. This hypothesis has been supported by the demographic data inferred from historical changes in Kamekan, a burial system used especially in the Kyushu area in the Yayoi period. The present study aims to examine (...) the previous claim by using an expanded dataset of human skeletal remains and Kamekan. First, in order to quantify the intensity of warfare, we developed a database of injured individuals found in the middle phase of the Yayoi period in two large populations in the northern Kyushu area, the Fukuoka plain and the upperand middle-stream of the Homan River. Second, we collected Kamekan data from site reports published after 1990 and constructed a comprehensive database to infer the demography in these areas. Finally, we compared the frequency of injured individuals and the inferred demography. The results suggest that the frequency of injured individuals and the population increase tended to be higher at the upper- and middle-stream of the Homan River than on the Fukuoka plain. Different assumptions of the lifetime of each type of Kamekan can produce mixed results on the relationship between demography and the frequency of injured individuals. They were positively correlated under the traditional assumption of constant time intervals, while there was no correlation using time intervals based on carbon dating by the National Museum of Japanese History. Thus, our results are partially consistent with the previous claim that the population increase and the lack of land and resources due to the introduction of agriculture were causes of warfare in the northern Kyushu area in the middle phase of the Yayoi period. (shrink)

Ant colony optimization, which is one of the metaheuristics imitating real ant foraging behavior, is an effective method to find a solution for the traveling salesman problem. The rank-based ant system has been proposed as a developed version of the fundamental model AS of ACO. In the ASrank, since only ant agents that have found one of some excellent solutions are let to regulate the pheromone, the pheromone concentrates on a specific route. As a result, although the ASrank can find (...) a relatively good solution in a short time, it has the disadvantage of being prone falling into a local solution because the pheromone concentrates on a specific route. This problem seems to come from the loss of diversity in route selection according to the rapid accumulation of pheromones to the specific routes. Some ACO models, not just the ASrank, also suffer from this problem of loss of diversity in route selection. It can be considered that the diversity of solutions as well as the selection of solutions is an important factor in the solution system by swarm intelligence such as ACO. In this paper, to solve this problem, we introduce the ant system using individual memories aiming to improve the ability to solve TSP while maintaining the diversity of the behavior of each ant. We apply the existing ACO algorithms and ASIM to some TSP benchmarks and compare the ability to solve TSP. (shrink)