The modern political consciousness of Japan cannot be understood without reference to the history of the Tokugawa period, the era between 1600 and 1868 that preceded Japan's modern transformation. Tetsuo Najita introduces the ideas of the leading political thinker of the period, Ogyu Sorai, a pivotal figure in laying the conceptual foundations of Japan's modernization. His basic thoughts about history and the ethical purposes of politics are presented, revealing the richness of the philosophical legacy of eighteenth-century Japan, a legacy (...) which cannot be seen through the perspective of 'westernization'. His ideas reveal a vision of human diversity and individual virtue which can be viewed in comparative perspective, as well as an insight into the history and politics of Japan. The texts are accompanied by a chronology of Sorai's life, a glossary, a guide to persons mentioned in the text, and a guide to further reading, as well as Professor Najita's introduction, which puts Sorai's work into philosophical and historical context. (shrink)

明治時代まで日本には「科学」という言葉がなかった―異国文化であった科学技術の受容にあたって、日本の伝統的なものの考え方・習慣と激しく衝突した。“文化の翻訳”に苦闘した人びとの姿を描く。.

The energy spectrum of the bound states of the nucleon-monopole system is determined, the monopole harmonics Yq,l,m are related to Wigner's functions D m,m′ (L) of the rotation matrix, and the scattering wave functions of the proton in the dyon source field are calculated.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) are invaluable neuroscientific tools for unveiling human neural dynamics in three dimensions (space, time, and frequency), which are associated with a wide variety of perceptions, cognition, and actions. MEG/EEG also provides different categories of neuronal indices including activity magnitude, connectivity, and network properties along the three dimensions. In the last 20 years, interest has increased in inter-regional connectivity and complex network properties assessed by various sophisticated scientific analyses. We herein review the definition, computation, short history, (...) and pros and cons of connectivity and complex network (graph-theory) analyses applied to MEG/EEG signals. We briefly describe recent developments in source reconstruction algorithms essential for source-space connectivity and network analyses. Furthermore, we discuss a relatively novel approach used in MEG/EEG studies to examine the complex dynamics represented by human brain activity. The correct and effective use of these neuronal metrics provides a new insight into the multi-dimensional dynamics of the neural representations of various functions in the complex human brain. (shrink)

戦後の進歩的知識人の代表、思想史学のリーダーであった丸山真男。超国家主義、「原型」・「古層」を追究し、山崎闇斎学派、荻生徂徠、福沢諭吉らの思想構造を解明する丸山思想史学を再構成。丸山に対する論評を詳述 。.

‘Popular culture’ has two Japanese translations: taishu bunka and minshu bunka. Bunka embraces the entire concept of ‘culture,’ but ‘popular’ isn't so easily translated. Taishu means a large number (tai) of population or groups (shu), while minshu means groups (shu) of ordinary people (min). Thus, minshu bunka is a more faithful translation of 'popular culture’ than taishu bunka. Yet, the expression minshu bunka does not occur as frequently as taishu bunka. This means that, in thejapanese context, ‘popular culture’ is generally (...) regarded as ‘mass culture.’ Only when the difference is intentionally stressed does the term of minshu bunka reappear. This is not a mere language problem but derives from the very process by which minshu bunka becomes taishu bunka. (shrink)

生き残りを図る欧米のサバイバル戦略に対する共に死ぬという無常戦略。日本の文化が育んできた死生観、無常観を見つめなおすことで、明日を生きる道が開けてくる。.

“いのち”とは何だろう!!終末論的状況の今、人はいかに“いのち”を全うするのか。宗教学者・山折哲雄が様々な識者たちと根源的に“いのち”を問い直す。.

The identification of Smad proteins as molecular components of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling cascade has enhanced our understanding of how ligand-mediated activation of TGF-β receptors leads to modulation of target gene transcription. Recent studies have identified a distinct, structurally related class of Smads which inhibits, rather than transduces, TGF-β family signals. The molecular mechanism of action and the exact signaling pathways that are targeted by antagonistic Smads are not completely understood. These proteins appear to participate in autoregulatory negative (...) feedback loops in which signaling initiated by specific TGF-β family ligands induces the expression of an inhibitory Smad that then functions to modulate the amplitude or duration of signaling. Negative feedback circuits such as these play important roles in fine-tuning the activity of multifunctional signaling molecules during embryonic patterning and in response to pathologic stimuli in adults. BioEssays 21:382–390, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In 1981, the Atlantic Council's Energy Policy Committee, in collaboration with the Japanese Committee for Energy Policy Promotion and the Japanese Institute of Energy Economics, published a joint policy paper entitled 'U.S.-Japan Energy Relationships in the 1980s.'.

Experiment with public deployment of the semantic service matchmaker to a UDDI registry for a year is described in this paper. UDDI is a standard registry for Web Services, but, its search functionality has been limited to a keyword search. Therefore, we propose an enhancement of UDDI, called Matchmaker, that supports semantic service capability discovery. Since September 2003, we have deployed the Matchmaker in one of four official UDDI registries operated by NTT-Communications. In this paper, we first introduce the Matchmaker, (...) and illustrate client tools which lower the threshold of use of semantics. Then, we evaluate this experiment by benchmarks in terms of its performance and functionality. Finally, we discuss user requirements obtained by two ways: questionnaire and observation of search behavior. (shrink)

Specificities of enzymes involved in plant specialized metabolism, including flavonoid biosynthesis, are generally promiscuous. This enzyme promiscuity has served as an evolutionary basis for new enzyme functions and metabolic pathways in land plants adapting to environmental challenges. This phenomenon may lead, however, to inefficiency in specialized metabolism and adversely affect metabolite‐mediated plant survival. How plants manage enzyme promiscuity for efficient specialized metabolism is, thus, an open question. Recent studies of flavonoid biosynthesis addressing this issue have revealed a conserved strategy, namely, (...) a homolog of chalcone isomerase with no catalytic activity binds to chalcone synthase, a key flavonoid pathway enzyme, to narrow (or rectify) the enzyme's highly promiscuous product specificity. Reducing promiscuity via specific protein–protein interactions among metabolic enzymes and proteins may be a solution adopted by land plants to achieve efficient operation of specialized metabolism, while the intrinsic promiscuity of enzymes has likely been retained incidentally. (shrink)

This study is aimed to address the problems associated with questionnaire-based research. Twelve hypothetical cases are presented and checked for ethical validity. The problems are categorized under seven headings: Whether the participation of the subject is truly voluntary; whether consent to participate in the study has been obtained or proxy consent is required; whether consent to participate has been obtained from "authentic" participants and their privacy is protected; whether participants are fully informed before they consent to participate; whether the validity (...) of questionnaire-based research has been determined in terms of its possible harm; how the roles of the research ethics committee are defined; and what content should be presented in reports and articles. It is important that the ethics of questionnaire-based research should be reviewed with consideration to maintaining a balance between the protection of a subject's human rights and the promotion of research for the improvement of medical science and health care. (shrink)