The infamous difficulty of Lacan's writing has its own, very apt synecdoche: the matheme. What makes this ‘little letter’ that structures the signifier so apposite a device is how it stymies even those sophisticated readers for whom Lacan is as close-readable as Mallarm e. The proposition offered here is that this crisis of reading is not the consequence of either some terrible mistake or egregious failing in character, but rather a typically Lacanian move by which his text stages the very (...) theory it is presumably explicating. This article suggests that by striving to read the matheme, instead of seizing upon excuses to avoid it, we can begin to understand what Lacan meant when he said that everything emerges from the structure of the signifier. (shrink)

Ted T. Aoki, the most prominent curriculum scholar of his generation in Canada, has influenced numerous scholars around the world. Curriculum in a New Key brings together his work, over a 30-year span, gathered here under the themes of reconceptualizing curriculum; language, culture, and curriculum; and narrative. Aoki's oeuvre is utterly unique--a complex interdisciplinary configuration of phenomenology, post-structuralism, and multiculturalism that is both theoretically and pedagogically sophisticated and speaks directly to teachers, practicing and prospective. Curriculum in a New (...) Key: The Collected Works of Ted T. Aoki is an invaluable resource for graduate students, professors, and researchers in curriculum studies, and for students, faculty, and scholars of education generally. (shrink)

The formation and recall of memories are fundamental aspects of life and help preserve the complex collection of experiences that provide us with a sense of identity and autonomy. Scientists have recently started to investigate pharmacological agents that inhibit or “dampen” the strength of memory formation and recall. The development of these memory-dampening agents has been investigated for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Currently, these agents are being tested in multicenter clinical trials and will likely soon be approved (...) for the treatment of PTSD. With advancements in technology, more targeted memory-dampening techniques may be developed in the future. Accessibility to these agents will inevitably affect one's sense of identity and also one's sense of autonomy. Therefore, it is essential that the legal and ethical implications of using these agents be examined for governments and courts to appropriately address issues that may emerge. (shrink)

Appearing in English for the first time, Schelling’s 1842 lectures develop the idea that many philosophical concepts are born of religious-mythological notions.

Critical remarks on Geo Maher's _Anticolonial Eruptions_.

This paper highlights the need to apply an equity lens when assessing the impact of preemption and related legal doctrines on community health. Community autonomy to set and pursue public health priorities is an essential part of achieving health equity. Unfortunately, the priorities of organized industry interest groups often conflict with health equity goals. These groups have a history of successfully using law to limit community autonomy to pursue public health measures, most notably through preemption and related legal doctrines. We (...) examine this phenomenon using two examples. First, we look at dental association efforts to block the spread of dental therapists in Indian Country. Native dental therapists have been improving the oral health of native people in Alaska for over a decade; yet the national and state dental associations have sought with mixed success to leverage state and federal laws to hinder other tribal governments from utilizing these providers. We compare these efforts with a restaurant association-led movement to limit what municipal governments can do to address food-based health inequities, focusing on a “model” ALEC bill that started in Ohio. Finally, we discuss how municipalities and Tribes are fighting back and continuing to pursue health equity for their communities. (shrink)

Insulators play a central role in subdividing the chromosome into a series of discrete topologically independent domains and in ensuring that enhancers and silencers contact their appropriate target genes. In this review we first discuss the general characteristics of insulator elements and their associated protein factors. A growing collection of insulator proteins have been identified including a family of proteins whose expression is developmentally regulated. We next consider several unexpected discoveries that require us to completely rethink how insulators function (and (...) how they can best be assayed). These discoveries also require a reevaluation of how insulators might restrict or orchestrate (by preventing or promoting) interactions between regulatory elements and their target genes. We conclude by connecting these new insights into the mechanisms of insulator action to dynamic changes in the three‐dimensional topology of the chromatin fiber and the generation of specific patterns of gene activity during development and differentiation. (shrink)

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into St. (...) Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

This paper examines how Japanese leading politicians cope with the communication problems posed during televised political interviews. Based on data gathered during the year 2012 equivocation, thereby to also assess the significance of these talk shows in the broader context of political communication in Japan.

This book is not another parable of Japan's economic success; it provides rich and systematic descriptions of Japanese microeconomic institutions and interprets their work in terms familiar to Western economists. A systematic, in-depth analysis of Japanese institutions of this kind has never been available before. In making his comparative analysis of the Japanese system, Professor Aoki critically examines conventional notions about the microstructure of the market economy that have strongly shaped and influenced economists' approach to industrial organization. While these (...) notions may constitute an appropriate foundation for the analysis of the highly market-oriented Western economies, the author has found that a more complete understanding of the Japanese economy requires us to broaden such 'specific' notions. At one level, therefore, this book may be regarded as a provocative exercise in comparative industrial organization and the theory of the firm. To the extent that this approach is convincing, the book suggests a reordering of focus and emphasis in these studies. (shrink)

This study examined why intensive care unit (ICU) nurses experience difficulties in respecting the wishes of patients in end-of-life care in Japan. A questionnaire survey was conducted with ICU nurses working in Japanese university hospitals. The content of their narratives was analyzed concerning the reasons why the nurses believed that patients' wishes were not respected. The most commonly stated reason was that patients' wishes were impossible to realize, followed by the fact that decision making was performed by others, regardless of (...) whether the patients' wishes were known, if the death was sudden, and time constraints. Many nurses wanted to respect the wishes of dying patients, but they questioned how patients die in ICUs and were therefore faced with ethical dilemmas. However, at the same time, many of the nurses realized that respecting patients' wishes about end-of-life care in an ICU would be difficult and that being unable to respect these wishes would often be unavoidable. The results thus suggest that there has been insufficient discussion about respecting the wishes of patients undergoing intensive care. (shrink)

Own-age bias is a well-known bias reflecting the effects of age, and its role has been demonstrated, particularly, in face recognition. However, it remains unclear whether an own-age bias exists in facial impression formation. In the present study, we used three datasets from two published and one unpublished functional magnetic resonance imaging study that employed the same pleasantness rating task with fMRI scanning and preferential choice task after the fMRI to investigate whether healthy young and older participants showed own-age effects (...) in face preference. Specifically, we employed a drift-diffusion model to elaborate the existence of own-age bias in the processes of preferential choice. The behavioral results showed higher rating scores and higher drift rate for young faces than for older faces, regardless of the ages of participants. We identified a young-age effect, but not an own-age effect. Neuroimaging results from aggregation analysis of the three datasets suggest a possibility that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was associated with evidence accumulation of own-age faces; however, no clear evidence was provided. Importantly, we found no age-related decline in the responsiveness of the vmPFC to subjective pleasantness of faces, and both young and older participants showed a contribution of the vmPFC to the parametric representation of the subjective value of face and functional coupling between the vmPFC and ventral visual area, which reflects face preference. These results suggest that the preferential choice of face is less susceptible to the own-age bias across the lifespan of individuals. (shrink)

劇的転換を求められている新たな生命倫理の案内書。従来、医療分野に集中しがちであった内容を生命科学全体とさらに関連する社会的緊急課題―環境・人口・難民・人種などにまで拡大、包括して最適任者が興趣ある解説 で応える。.

This volume presents historical, contemporary, and theoretical perspectives on the role of local communities and social norms in the economic development process. Using historical evidence combined with recent developments in institutional economics involving game theory and contracts, it establishes that communities can enhance the development of a market economy under certain circumstances -- and sheds light on what those circumstances are.