In bacteria, PriA protein, a conserved DEXH‐type DNA helicase, plays a central role in replication restart at stalled replication forks. Its unique DNA‐binding property allows it to recognize and stabilize stalled forks and the structures derived from them. Cells must cope with fork stalls caused by various replication stresses to complete replication of the entire genome. Failure of the stalled fork stabilization process and eventual restart could lead to various forms of genomic instability. The low viability of priA null cells (...) indicates a frequent occurrence of fork stall during normal growth that needs to be properly processed. PriA specifically recognizes the 3′‐terminus of the nascent leading strand or the invading strand in a displacement (D)‐loop by the three‐prime terminus binding pocket (TT‐pocket) present in its unique DNA binding domain. Elucidation of the structural basis for recognition of arrested forks by PriA should provide useful insight into how stalled forks are recognized in eukaryotes. (shrink)

I am honored to have been invited to participate in this Workshop on Comparative Studies of Building Molecular Biology, with a discussion of Japanese experiences in constructing a science — in this case, the discipline of molecular biology. As I understand it, the construction of a science must be equivalent to building a new culture. My having given this title to my paper suggests that I have enough knowledge about the subject to perhaps even extrapolate its course into the future (...) — which I do not. What I do have is a sincere admiration of my old friends and colleagues, in Japan and elsewhere, who together tried to build a new science of molecular biology in Japan. (shrink)

狂信的な国粋主義者か、はたまた魂の尊厳を問うた求道者か。民俗学と国粋主義の親和性とは。多角的な視点からファシズムを再考する。.

I explore options for a plenitudinarian solution to the Paradox of Flexible Origin Essentialism, taking as my unlikely starting point the views of Sarah-Jane Leslie, who holds that if plenitudinarianism is true, then there is in fact no paradox to be solved, only the illusion of one. The first three sections are expository: Sect. 1 on plenitudinarianism, Sect. 2 on the paradox, and Sect. 3 on Leslie’s views about how plenitudinarianism bears on the paradox. In Sect. 4, I reject the (...) contention that there is no paradox and critically explore three options for a plenitudinarian solution. In Sect. 5, I argue that the plenitudinarian ought to endorse a fourth option. In Sect. 6, I consider an objection. I endorse neither plenitudinarianism nor its denial; the main aim of the paper is to argue that for one who does endorse plenitudinarianism, the best solution to the Paradox of Flexible Origin Essentialism is clear. (shrink)

Previous findings in cultural psychology indicated that East Asians are more likely than North Americans to be attentive to contextual information (e.g., Nisbett & Masuda, ). However, to what extent and in which conditions culture influences patterns of attention has not been fully examined. As a result, universal patterns of attention may be obscured, and culturally unique patterns may be wrongly assumed to be constant across situations. By carrying out two cross-cultural studies, we demonstrated that (a) both European Canadians and (...) Japanese attended to moving objects similarly when the task was to simply observe the visual information; however, (b) there were cultural variations in patterns of attention when participants actively engaged in the task by constructing narratives of their observation (narrative construction). These findings suggest that cultural effects are most pronounced in narrative construction conditions, where the need to act in accordance with a culturally shared meaning system is elicited. (shrink)

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 世界衛生組織(WHO)在歷經自1976年伊波拉病毒病(EbolaHemorrhagicFever, 伊波拉出血熱)爆發以來，處理疫情爆發當中出現的種種倫理問題之後，於2016年出版“Guidance for Managing Ethical Issues in Infectious Disease Outbreaks”（中文暫譯：《傳染病爆發處理倫理議題之指引》）一書，其中整理出「正義、行善、效益、尊重自主、自由、團結、互惠」等七項倫理原則，於今面對新冠肺炎（COVID-19）的疫情上，各國防疫 政策，亦可作為應對。作為一名當代墨者，本文即以此為基礎，由醫療的角度，結合國內情況，企欲在墨學義理內作一生命倫理的反思，並試圖對後疫情時代給予具體作為之建議。 In response to various ethical problems that emerged after the 1976 Ebola hemorrhagic fever epidemic, WHO published the book Guidance for Managing Ethical Issues in Infectious Disease Outbreaks in 2016. The content of the book was organized around seven ethical principles, namely, justice, beneficence, benefit, respect for autonomy, freedom, reciprocity, and unity. These seven ethical principles can be used as (...) a framework for countries to develop policies for coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from contemporary Mohism, this paper reflects on the situation in Taiwan through the lens of these seven ethical principles. It aims to arrive at a Mohist understanding of bioethics and proposes concrete actions for the post-epidemic era. (shrink)

Cellular pattern formations of some epithelia are believed to be governed by the direct lateral inhibition rule of cell differentiation. That is, initially equivalent cells are all competent to differentiate, but once a cell has differentiated, the cell inhibits its immediate neighbors from following this pathway. Such a differentiation repeats until all non-inhibited cells have differentiated. The cellular polygonal patterns can be characterized by the numbers of undifferentiated cells and differentiated ones. When the differentiated cells become large in size, the (...) polygonal pattern is deformed since more cells are needed to enclose the large cell. An actual example of such a cellular pattern was examined. The pupal wing epidermis of a butterfly Pieris rapae shows a transition of the equivalent-size cell pattern to the pattern involving large cells. The process of the transition was analyzed by using the method of weighted Voronoi tessellation that is useful for treatment of irregularly sized polygons. The analysis supported that the pattern transition of the early stage of the pupal wing epidermis is governed by the lateral inhibition rule. The differentiation takes place in order of largeness, but not smallness, of the apical polygonal area in the differentiating region of the pupal wing. (shrink)

Individual differences in moral views are often explained as the downstream effect of ideological commitments, such as political orientation and religiosity. Recent studies in the U.S. suggest that moral views about recreational drug use are also influenced by attitudes toward sex and that this relationship cannot be explained by ideological commitments. In this study, we investigate student samples from Belgium, The Netherlands, and Japan. We find that, in all samples, sexual attitudes are strongly related to views about recreational drug use, (...) even after controlling for various ideological variables. We discuss our results in light of reproductive strategies as determinants of moral views. (shrink)

This article examines the concept of void with the question of whether the concept forms a sign. A void in this article is defined as a spatio-temporal empty space existing in a representation. The aim of the analysis is to consider the hidden nature of signs, which cannot be highlighted only through an analysis of typical signs within social convention. As a semiotic tool to conduct the discussion, the notion of a zero sign of Lévi-Strauss is introduced. The article considers (...) all possible zeros that can exist within the Saussurian sign model and introduces three cases: an omitted sign, an ambiguous signified, and an ambiguous sign. After examining the features of each kind, the concept of void is considered in these terms, with the conclusion that it belongs to the ambiguous sign case. Analysis of void with respect to the zero sign highlights the nature of signs as being reflexive, holistic and speculative. Because the signifier is barely delimited, it influences the surrounding sign systems, including the one existing at the meta-level. An ambiguous sign is deemed to allow for concept sharing among people even when the signifier and the signified remain ambiguous. (shrink)

Adopting a modified Stroop task, the authors tested the hypothesis that processing systems brought to bear on comprehension of emotional speech are attuned primarily to word evaluation in a low-context culture and language (i.e., in English), but they are attuned primarily to vocal emotion in a high-context culture and language (i.e., in Japanese). Native Japanese (Studies 1 and 2) and English speakers (Study 3) made a judgement of either vocal emotion or word evaluation of an emotionally spoken evaluative word. Word (...) evaluations and vocal emotions were comparable in extremity in the two languages. In support of the hypothesis, an interference effect by competing word evaluation in the vocal emotion judgement was significantly stronger in English than in Japanese. In contrast, an interference effect by competing vocal emotion in the word evaluation judgement was stronger in Japanese than in English. Implications for the cultural grounding of communication, emotion, and cognition are discussed. (shrink)

In 2015 the United Kingdom (UK) became the first nation to legalize egg and zygotic nuclear transfer procedures using mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) to prevent the maternal transmission of serious mitochondrial DNA diseases to offspring. These techniques are a form of human germline genetic modification and can happen intentionally if female embryos are selected during the MRT clinical process, either through sperm selection or preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). In the same year, an MRT was performed by a United States (U.S.)-based (...) physician team. This experiment involved a cross-border effort: the MRT procedure per se was carried out in the US, and the embryo transfer in Mexico. The authors examine the ethics of MRTs from the standpoint of genetic relatedness and gender implications, in places that lack adequate laws and regulation regarding assisted reproduction. Then, we briefly examine whether MRTs can be justified as a reproductive option in the US and Mexico, after reassessing their legalization in the UK. We contend that morally inadequate and ineffective regulations regarding egg donation, PGD, and germline genetic modifications jeopardize the ethical acceptability of the implementation of MRTs, suggesting that MRTs are currently difficult to justify in the US and Mexico. In addition to relevant regulation, the initiation and appropriate use of MRTs in a country require a child-centered follow-up policy and more evidence for its safety. (shrink)

This article argues how one problem of computing lies in realizing a significant instance given a class or type. Analysis of a case study on digital narrative suggests two general processes for instantiating significant instances: interaction and optimization. The article then explains how the problem of universals needs to be deconstructed when trying to understand what type of entities significant instances are and what the process for obtaining them is.

Long-range correlation, a property of time series exhibiting long-term memory, is mainly studied in the statistical physics domain and has been reported to exist in natural language. Using a state-of-the-art method for such analysis, long-range correlation is first shown to occur in long CHILDES data sets. To understand why, Bayesian generative models of language, originally proposed in the cognitive scientific domain, are investigated. Among representative models, the Simon model was found to exhibit surprisingly good long-range correlation, but {\em not} the (...) Pitman-Yor model. Since the Simon model is known not to correctly reflect the vocabulary growth of natural language, a simple new model is devised as a conjunct of the Simon and Pitman-Yor models, such that long-range correlation holds with a correct vocabulary growth rate. The investigation overall suggests that uniform sampling is one cause of long-range correlation and could thus have a relation with actual linguistic processes. (shrink)

We defend hylomorphism against Maegan Fairchild’s purported proof of its inconsistency. We provide a deduction of a contradiction from SH+, which is the combination of “simple hylomorphism” and an innocuous premise. We show that the deduction, reminiscent of Russell’s Paradox, is proof-theoretically valid in classical higher-order logic and invokes an impredicatively defined property. We provide a proof that SH+ is nevertheless consistent in a free higher-order logic. It is shown that the unrestricted comprehension principle of property abstraction on which the (...) purported proof of inconsistency relies is analogous to naïve unrestricted set-theoretic comprehension. We conclude that logic imposes a restriction on property comprehension, a restriction that is satisfied by the ramified theory of types. By extension, our observations constitute defenses of theories that are structurally similar to SH+, such as the theory of singular propositions, against similar purported disproofs. (shrink)

O Transtorno de Déficit de Atenção e Hiperatividade (TDAH) é um transtorno do neurodesenvolvimento e representa uma preocupação significativa, principalmente, em crianças em idade escolar. Esta pesquisa busca fornecer atualizações sobre a medicalização e o TDAH presentes na realidade escolar do ensino fundamental da cidade de Maringá-PR. Para isso, utilizou-se um questionário semiestruturado em 8 Instituições de Ensino Básico, distribuídas em 4 regiões da cidade, no período de 2015 a 2016. A amostra contou com 2.367 estudantes de 6 a 10 (...) anos. Os dados foram analisados de forma quantitativa e qualitativa e, a partir destes, observou, percentualmente, o índice de crianças com TDAH foi o esperado, não ultrapassando a média constante na literatura, e o medicamento prevalente foi o metilfenidato. Entretanto, percebemos que sem a adequação pedagógica e a falta de sinergia entre o uso do medicamento ao acompanhamento psicológico, o transtorno pode não estar sendo resolvido, mas apenas mascarado. (shrink)

This paper undertakes a comparative legal study to analyze the challenges of privacy and personal data protection posed by Artificial Intelligence embedded in Robots, and to offer policy suggestions. After identifying the benefits from various AI usages and the risks posed by AI-related technologies, I then analyze legal frameworks and relevant discussions in the EU, USA, Canada, and Japan, and further consider the efforts of Privacy by Design originating in Ontario, Canada. While various AI usages provide great convenience, many issues, (...) including profiling, discriminatory decisions, lack of transparency, and impeding consent, have emerged. The unpredictability arising from the AI machine learning function poses further difficulties, which have only been partially addressed by legal frameworks in the aforementioned jurisdictions. However, analyzing the relevant discussions yielded several suggestions. The first priority is adopting PbD as the most flexible, soft-legal, and preferable approach toward AI-oriented issues. Implementing PbD will protect individual privacy and personal data without specific efforts, and achieve both the development of AI and the advancement of privacy and personal data protection. Technical measures that can adapt to an individual’s dynamic choices according to the “context” should be further developed. Furthermore, alternative technical measures, including those to solve the “algorithmic black box” or achieve differential privacy, warrant thorough examination. If AI surpasses human intelligence, a terminating function, such as a “kill switch” will be the last resort to preserve individual choice. Despite numerous difficulties, we must prepare for the coming AI-prevalent society by taking a flexible approach. (shrink)