Using fMRI, we investigated how right temporal lobe gliomas affecting the posterior superior temporal sulcus alter neural processing observed during speech perception and production tasks. Behavioural language testing showed that three pre-operative neurosurgical patients with grade 2, grade 3 or grade 4 tumours had the same pattern of mild language impairment in the domains of object naming and written word comprehension. When matching heard words for semantic relatedness (a speech perception task), these patients showed under-activation in the tumour infiltrated right (...) superior temporal lobe compared to 61 neurotypical participants and 16 patients with tumours that preserved the right postero-superior temporal lobe, with enhanced activation within the (tumour-free) contralateral left superior temporal lobe. In contrast, when correctly naming objects (a speech production task), the patients with right postero-superior temporal lobe tumours showed higher activation than both control groups in the same right postero-superior temporal lobe region that was under-activated during auditory semantic matching. The task dependent pattern of under-activation during the auditory speech task and over-activation during object naming was also observed in eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that affected the right postero-superior temporal lobe compared to eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that spared it. These task-specific and site-specific cross-pathology effects highlight the importance of the right temporal lobe for language processing and motivate further study of how right temporal lobe tumours affect language performance and neural reorganisation. These findings may have important implications for surgical management of these patients, as knowledge of the regions showing functional reorganisation may help to avoid their inadvertent damage during neurosurgery. (shrink)

Interventions performed on a pregnant woman's body can affect the fetus in multiple ways. Such effects can be harmful to beneficial to the fetus. Unfortunately, the effects of new drugs and compoun...

Compiled by an archaeologist and philosopher of science, Science at the Frontiers: Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of Science supplements current literature in the history and philosophy of science with essays approaching the traditional problems of the field from new perspectives and highlighting disciplines usually overlooked by the canon. William H. Krieger brings together scientists from a number of disciplines to answer these questions and more in a volume appropriate for both students and academics in the field.

BackgroundWhether and how to disclose genomic findings obtained in the course of genomic clinical practice and medical research has been a controversial global bioethical issue over the past two decades. Although several recommendations and judgment tools for the disclosure of genomic findings have been proposed, none are sufficiently systematic or inclusive or even consistent with each other. In order to approach the disclosure/non-disclosure practice in an ethical manner, optimal and easy-to-use tools for supporting the judgment of physicians/researchers in genomic medicine (...) are necessary.MethodsThe bioethics literature on this topic was analyzed to parse and deconstruct the somewhat overlapping and therefore ill-defined key concepts of genomic findings, such as incidental, primary, secondary, and other findings. Based on the deconstruction and conceptual analyses of these findings, we then defined key parameters from which to identify the strength of duty to disclose (SDD) for a genomic finding. These analyses were then applied to develop a framework with the SDD matrix and systematic decision-making pathways for the disclosure of genomic findings.ResultsThe following six major parameters (axes), along with sub-axes, were identified: Axis 1 (settings and institutions where findings emerge); Axis 2 (presence or absence of intention and anticipatability in discovery); Axis 3 (maximal actionability at the time of discovery); Axis 4 (net medical importance); Axis 5 (expertise of treating physician/researcher); and Axis 6 (preferences of individual patients/research subjects for disclosure). For Axes 1 to 4, a colored SDD matrix for genomic findings was developed in which levels of obligation for disclosing a finding can be categorized. For Axes 5 and 6, systematic decision-making pathways were developed via the SDD matrix.ConclusionWe analyzed the SDD of genomic findings and developed subsequent systematic decision-making pathways of whether and how to disclose genomic findings to patients/research subjects and their relatives in an ethical manner. Our comprehensive framework may help physicians and researchers in genomic medicine make consistent ethical judgments regarding the disclosure of genomic findings. (shrink)

The paper presents a new argument for epistemic permissivism. The version of permissivism that we defend is a moderate version that applies only to explicit doxastic attitudes. Drawing on Yalcin’s framework for modeling such attitudes, we argue that two fully rational subjects who share all their evidence, prior beliefs, and epistemic standards may still differ in the explicit doxastic attitudes that they adopt. This can happen because two such subjects may be sensitive to different questions. Thus, differing intellectual interests can (...) yield failures of uniqueness. This is not a merely pragmatic phenomenon. (shrink)

Recent work on the application of neural networks to language modeling has shown that models based on certain neural architectures can capture syntactic information from utterances and sentences even when not given an explicitly syntactic objective. We examine whether a fully data-driven model of language development that uses a recurrent neural network encoder for utterances can track how child language utterances change over the course of language development in a way that is comparable to what is achieved using established language (...) assessment metrics that use language-specific information carefully designed by experts. Given only transcripts of child language utterances from the CHILDES Database and no pre-specified information about language, our model captures not just the structural characteristics of child language utterances, but how these structures reflect language development over time. We establish an evaluation methodology with which we can examine how well our model tracks language development compared to three known approaches: Mean Length of Utterance, the Developmental Sentence Score, and the Index of Productive Syntax. We discuss the applicability of our model to data-driven assessment of child language development, including how a fully data-driven approach supports the possibility of increased research in multilingual and cross-lingual issues. (shrink)

Ariga Tetsutaro (1899–1977) war Professor für das Studium des Christentums an der Universität Kyoto und gehörte dort der zweiten Professoren-generation an. Er legte die Grundlagen der Patristik und der Erforschung des Christentums in Japan. In seinem Hauptwerk “Origenes” hatte er den Historismus in der Theologie erforscht, aber nachdem er seinen Dienst als Professor an der staatlichen Universität aufgenommen hatte, die die Trennung von Staat und Religion hochhielt, suchte er nach Wegen, ein ‘Studium des Christlichen’ zu etablieren, das sich von der (...) Theologie unterschied. Dabei dienten ihm Schleiermachers “Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums” und die Tradition des deutschen liberalen Protestantismus als Anhaltspunkte. Anstatt der Theologie, die den Glauben als methodischen Ausgangspunkt hat, und der Religionswissenschaft, die nur die distanzierte Objektivität als Ausgangspunkt wählt, schlug er als neuen Versuch ein Christliches Studium mit akademischem Standpunkt vor, bei dem der Gelehrte eine Forschungshaltung einnimmt, die durch ein Mindestmaß an vernünftiger Kritik und ‘Ur-Sympathie’ gegenüber der Religion geprägt ist. (shrink)

Ariga Tetsutaro (1899–1977) war Professor für das Studium des Christentums an der Universität Kyoto und gehörte dort der zweiten Professoren-generation an. Er legte die Grundlagen der Patristik und der Erforschung des Christentums in Japan. In seinem Hauptwerk “Origenes” hatte er den Historismus in der Theologie erforscht, aber nachdem er seinen Dienst als Professor an der staatlichen Universität aufgenommen hatte, die die Trennung von Staat und Religion hochhielt, suchte er nach Wegen, ein ‘Studium des Christlichen’ zu etablieren, das sich von der (...) Theologie unterschied. Dabei dienten ihm Schleiermachers “Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums” und die Tradition des deutschen liberalen Protestantismus als Anhaltspunkte. Anstatt der Theologie, die den Glauben als methodischen Ausgangspunkt hat, und der Religionswissenschaft, die nur die distanzierte Objektivität als Ausgangspunkt wählt, schlug er als neuen Versuch ein Christliches Studium mit akademischem Standpunkt vor, bei dem der Gelehrte eine Forschungshaltung einnimmt, die durch ein Mindestmaß an vernünftiger Kritik und ‘Ur-Sympathie’ gegenüber der Religion geprägt ist. (shrink)

The $$\varepsilon $$ -elimination method of Hilbert’s $$\varepsilon $$ -calculus yields the up-to-date most direct algorithm for computing the Herbrand disjunction of an extensional formula. A central advantage is that the upper bound on the Herbrand complexity obtained is independent of the propositional structure of the proof. Prior (modern) work on Hilbert’s $$\varepsilon $$ -calculus focused mainly on the pure calculus, without equality. We clarify that this independence also holds for first-order logic with equality. Further, we provide upper bounds analyses (...) of the extended first $$\varepsilon $$ -theorem, even if the formalisation incorporates so-called $$\varepsilon $$ -equality axioms. (shrink)

人間は「生」を得た瞬間から「死」という「滅び」に向かって生きている。そうであるからこそ「生」を尊ぶという考え方が日本の美をつくってきた。日本の美意識の基層をなし、自然に美を見いだした「優美」。演技を七 分にとどめ、完全に演じ切らないことを説いた世阿弥の「幽玄」。慢心する秀吉を戒め、侘びることを説いた利休の「侘び」。旅の途中で寂びつくして命つきることを願った芭蕉の「さび」。西欧文化の影響が背景にある「 きれい」。そして、二一世紀に世界を席巻する「かわいい」とは―。日本の美の潮流を俯瞰し、心のふるさとに耳をすます。.

The earliest Chinese record of the maritime relations between India and China can be found in the “History of the Former Han Dynasty” (Chien Han-shu) which covers the period from B.C. 206 to A.D. 23. In its chapter (28b) on geography it is stated that ever since the time of the Emperor Wu (Wu Ti, B.C. 14087) the country called Huang-chih has sent tribute to the Chinese court, which in turn dispatched envoys to this remote country. Huang-chih has been identified (...) by many scholars with Kāñcī (Conjeeveram) on the east coast of South India. It is recorded that there were chief interpreters belonging to the Yellow Gate (the office of eunuchs serving in the palace) who went to sea to buy bright pearls, opaque glasses and other rare articles, taking with them from China gold and various kinds of silk for exchange. (shrink)

In recent years several books by major figures in Japan's modern philosophical tradition have appeared in English, exciting readers by their explorations of the borderlands between philosophy and religion. What has been wanting, however, is a book in a Western language to elucidate the life and thought of Nishida Kitaro, Japan's first philosopher of world stature and the originator of what has come to be called the Kyoto School. No one is more qualified to write such a book than Nishitani (...) Keiji, whose lifetime coincides with the rise and flowering of the Kyoto School and whose own critical contribution to Japanese thought has been so important. _Nishida Kitaro_ is a translation of essays Nishitani wrote about his teacher from 1936 to 1968 and published as a book in 1985. This series of meditations by one master on another provides a remarkable, living portrait of Nishida the person and conveys the enthusiasm he aroused in his students. Examining Nishida's most important work, _An Inquiry into the Good_, Nishitani penetrates to the core of his thought and presents it in language that is a marvel of clarity. (shrink)

Amid continuing social unrest from the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent Fukushima nuclear accident of 2011, the Japanese government announced plans for a major biobanking project in the disaster-stricken areas, to be administered by the ‘Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization’ (ToMMo). This project differs from previous biobanking projects in that it 1) was initiated mainly to boost post-disaster recovery and reconstruction; and 2) targets the area’s survivors as its primary subjects. Here, we review the ethics of the ToMMo biobanking project (...) within the wider context of disaster remediation. (shrink)

In 2005 Japan completed its first census after the Personal Information Protection Law went into force in April 2005. The debate about the new law raised privacy concerns for the first time among the public. The news-media also provided several examples of possible lack of safeguards in the data collection of sensitive personal information required for the census. The result was the highest non-response rate ever for the Japanese census. Consequently, its accuracy and role as a source for the reliable (...) national statistics for health/welfare policy-making is now critically threatened. In this paper we argue the necessity to adopt specific safeguards to protect personal data in any future census if the trend of increasing non-response rates is to be reversed. We provide some suggestions for such safeguards, and criticize the Japanese government’s response of focusing exclusively on the mechanism of data collection as a means of meeting the privacy challenge. (shrink)

Tool use is a central topic in research on cognitive evolution and behavioral ecology in non-human animals. Originally thought to be a uniquely human phenomenon, many other species have been observed making and using tools for a variety of purposes, starting with Goodall’s groundbreaking work with chimpanzees in Gombe. Despite the frequent attention and great research interest in animal tool use, and ubiquity of the behavior, we argue here that chewing sticks by dogs should be included as a case of (...) tool use. We discuss alternate possible explanations and then propose several testable predictions regarding this hypothesis. We suggest that tool use may be more common than is often assumed and that many cases of animal tool use may be overlooked. (shrink)

This study discusses the pattern of development of child-related policies, particularly in recent years. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lacks interest in public engagement in child-related issues, whereas Komeito, the recent coalition partner of the LDP, has been the driving force of recent developments. The study investigates the historical development of three child-related policies: namely, child allowance, childcare services, and the facilitation of work–life balance of employees, and discusses the role of Komeito in the recent coalition government. An analytical model (...) is provided to explain why Komeito was active in the development of child allowance, but not other policies. On the whole, the participation of Komeito in the coalition government seems to give impetus to the development of child-related polices, but the scope of that party's behavior is constrained, due to its position as a minor partner in the coalition government. (shrink)

丸山眞男の政治思想史と廣松渉の哲学は「現代の人間世界における人間性の運命とは」を「問う」たのであった。今、だからこそ惰性となった現実主義を「醒めた目」で捉える必要がある。つまり、丸山と廣松の両者のよう に「“鉄のように堅い殻”」の歴史内部で退動する「弁証法的緊張」を把握しなくてはならない。二人が生涯を賭けた思想史と哲学の探求は、人間の歴史的現実に対する私たち自身の課題なのである。.

田辺は自己の生を包摂する時代の趨勢と真摯に対峙し、廣松は「近代」の陥穽を注視し絶えず他者との協働を考察し続けた。この二人の視座から「啓蒙の弁証法」の陥穽に落ちた日本社会と日本人の「生の姿」を考えていく 。.