The paper is based on a review of research on media selection and related topics on the one hand and on an explorative pilot survey on the other. In summarising the review, the authors propose that the factors explaining media choice be grouped into five categories: (1) the properties of the media itself affect its choice, (2) properties of the user affect media choice, (3) the communication situation plays an important role, (4) macro factors explain media choice, and (5) media (...) choice can be explained as the outcome of a dynamic multiparty negotiation process. The pilot survey compares Japanese and Finnish students’ preference of media in various communication situations. The survey results encourage reserving, local macro factors or culture, a certain amount of explanatory force in explaining media choice. (shrink)

In this article, we develop and clarify some of the basic combinatorial properties of the new notion of n-dependence recently introduced by Shelah. In the same way as dependence of a theory means its inability to encode a bipartite random graph with a definable edge relation, n-dependence corresponds to the inability to encode a random -partite -hypergraph with a definable edge relation. We characterize n-dependence by counting φ-types over finite sets, and in terms of the collapse of random ordered -hypergraph (...) indiscernibles down to order-indiscernibles. (shrink)

This paper reports the findings of a comparative study in which students’ perceived attainment of the objectives of an engineering ethics education and their attitude towards engineering ethics were investigated and compared. The investigation was carried out in Japan and Malaysia, involving 163 and 108 engineering undergraduates respectively. The research method used was based on a survey in which respondents were sent a questionnaire to elicit relevant data. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were performed on the data. The results (...) of the analyses showed that the attainment of the objectives of engineering ethics education and students’ attitude towards socio-ethical issues in engineering were significantly higher and positive among Japanese engineering students compared to Malaysian engineering students. Such findings suggest that a well-structured, integrated, and innovative pedagogy for teaching ethics will have an impact on the students’ attainment of ethics education objectives and their attitude towards engineering ethics. As such, the research findings serve as a cornerstone to which the current practice of teaching and learning of engineering ethics education can be examined more critically, such that further improvements can be made to the existing curriculum that can help produce engineers that have strong moral and ethical characters. (shrink)

◎清末の知識人は複数の「文明」から自らの思想資源を探っていったと考察する画期的論考なる.

Nielsen's covert REM process model explains much of the mentation found in REM and NREM sleep, but stops short of postulating an interaction of waking cognitive processes with the dream mechanisms of REM sleep. It ranks with the Hobson et al. paper as a major theoretical advance. The Solms article does not surmount the ever-present problem of defining dreams in a manner conducive to advancing dream theory. Vertes & Eastman review the REM sleep and learning literature, but make questionable assumptions (...) in doing so. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]. (shrink)

Nishida Kitaro's reformulation of the major issues of Western philosophy from a Zen standpoint of "absolute nothingness" and "absolutely contradictory self-identity" represents the boldest speculative enterprise of modern Japan, continued today by his successors in the "Kyoto School" of philosophy. This English translation of Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness evokes the movement and flavor of the original, clarifies its obscurities, and eliminates the repetitions. It sheds new light on the philosopher's career, revealing a long struggle with such thinkers as Cohen, (...) Natorp, Husserl, Fichte, and Bergson, that ended with Nishida's break from the basic ontological assumptions of the West. Throughout labyrinthine arguments, Nishida never loses sight of his theme: the irreducibility and unobjectifiability of the act of self-consciousness which constitutes the self. Extensive annotation is provided for the first time in any edition of Nishida's work. Historians of Japanese philosophy and culture, and all those interested in the interaction of Eastern and Western thought-forms, now have a document which highlights many of the cultural, psychological, and intellectual dynamics that have shaped Japanese intellectual life in one of its most fascinating and ambitious manifestations. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop an organization method of page information agents for adaptive interface between a user and a Web search engine. Though a Web search engine indicates a hit list of Web pages to user’s query using a large database, they includes many useless ones. Thus a user has to select useful Web pages from them with page information indicated on the hit list, and actually fetch the Web page for investigating the relevance. Unfortunately, since the page information (...) on a hit list is neither sufficient nor necessary for a user, the adequate information is necessary for valid selection. However which information is adequate depends on a user and a task. Hence we propose adaptive interface AOAI in which different page information agents are organized through man-machine interaction. In AOAI, the page information agents indicating different page information on a hit list like the file-size, network traffic and a page title are prepared at first. A user evaluates them through searching with a search engine, and the agents are organized based on the evaluation. As results, different organizations are achieved depending on a user and a task. Finally we make experiments with subjects and find out AOAI is promising for adaptive interface between a user and a search engine. (shrink)

Japanese Buddhism is sometimes called “funeral Buddhism” contemptuously. Buddhism is often criticized in that it serves only the dead and does not useful for the living. In truth, the main duties of Buddhist monks are to perform funeral services, maintain graves and perform memorial services for the dead in Japan today. Modern Buddhist leaders in Japan tried to argue against such criticism and insisted that Buddhism in origin was not a religion for the dead but for the living. In the (...) post-modern situation, however, the philosophy of the dead is becoming necessary instead of the philosophy of the living that has been prevalent in modern ages. The living human beings cannot live without thinking of the dead. For example, the war victims in Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Nanjing and other places do not forgive us even today. In this situation, it is necessary to evaluate Buddhist tradition in Japan that shows us the way how to go with the dead. In this paper, first, I will introduce the philosophy of Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962) who insisted the existential co-operation with the dead under the influence of Zen Buddhism and next, examine some Mahayana Buddhist sutras from the viewpoint of the relation between the living and the dead. (shrink)

人間は本来的に、公共の秩序に収まらない何かを抱えて生きる存在である。常識として通用してきた倫理道徳では対応できない問題が起きたとき、そこに見えてくるのは何なのか。“人間”の領域、つまり倫理的な世界をは み出したところで出会う「他者」、さらにはその極限にある「死者」との関わりを、著者は、古典的な仏教学ではない“現代に生きる仏教”の視座から、根源的に問い直そうとする。倫理を超える新たな地平を示すと同時に 、日本仏教の思想的成果を丹念に抽出し、それを広範な哲学・思想史の中に位置づけ、鍛え直した著書。初版刊行後の理論的展開を書き下ろしで加えた、待望の文庫版。.

1. Meiji shisōka ron -- 2. Kindai Nihon to Bukkyō.

末木文美士、中島隆博、若松英輔、安藤礼二、中島岳志、死者と霊性をめぐっての白熱した討議をまとめる。.

日本において「近代仏教」はどのように形成され、展開していったのか。本書は、こうした問いを念頭に、思想と実践の両面から、代表的知識人の営為に光をあてる。また、浄土、日蓮、禅という三系統について、それぞれ の複雑な思想動向を取りあげていく。幅広い視点から、近代仏教の諸相をとらえた充実の書。.

哲学を厳密さの檻から解放し、日本の近代思想を土台に豊かな思索の実践を繰り広げる。.

Some people in Japan are still comfortable with the paternalistic role of doctors, but others wish that their own decisions would receive a greater amount of respect. A total of 747 students of universities and colleges and 114 parents of these students participated in a questionnaire survey. Most of the participants thought that autonomy should be respected in situations involving death with dignity and euthanasia, whereas it should not be respected in attempted suicide and involuntary admission of individuals with mental (...) illness. A cluster analysis revealed that the participants could be divided into the following groups: aid in dying advocates, complete libertarians, protectors of the mentally ill, complete paternalists, and questionables. The assertion of independence score of the Scale for Independent and Interdependent Construal of the Self showed a significant difference among the 5 clusters. These findings suggest that the traditional paternalistic relationship between doctor and patient is undergoing a gradual transformation in Japan. (shrink)

We introduce several concepts concerning the indiscernibility of trees. A tree is by definition an ordered set such that, for any a∈O, the initial segment {b∈O:b (...) A of the form η∈O, where O is a tree, and aη labeled by η is an element in M. Such a set A is also called a tree in this paper. We study the indiscernibility of trees A in general settings and apply the obtained results to the study of unstable theories. (shrink)

The industrial society in Japan is now entering into a new era of an advanced information society or a network society. AI as a knowledge information processing technology is becoming an integral part of the society. This emerging era is being supported by the information industry.

BackgroundMany genetic counseling studies have focused on anxiety status because clients of GC often feel anxious during their visits. Metacognition is known to be one of the causes of having an inappropriate thinking style. In this study, we examined the relationship between anxiety and the metacognitive status of GC clients according to their characteristics.MethodsThe participants were 106 clients who attended their first GC session in our hospital from November 2018 to March 2021. The survey items were the clients’ characteristics, anxiety (...) status at the time of the visit, and metacognitive status.ResultsHigh state anxiety and high trait anxiety were observed in 34.9 and 11.3% of clients, respectively. Clients who were a relative or had a family history were significantly more likely to have high state anxiety. As for metacognitive status, only negative beliefs about thoughts concerning uncontrollability and danger were associated with having an anxiety status. Furthermore, multivariate analysis showed that negative beliefs about thoughts concerning uncontrollability and danger were an independent determinant of higher state anxiety, but not being a relative or having a family history. Metacognitive status scores were significantly lower in clients than in the control group.ConclusionState anxiety was shown to be more dependent on negative beliefs about thoughts concerning uncontrollability and danger of GC clients than their characteristics such as being a relative or having a family history. The results of this study will contribute to the development of new GC psychosocial support measures to address the anxiety of GC clients. (shrink)

When a central government deals with local demands, it may strengthen political accountability of the local governments by political decentralization or offer benefits through economic assistance. An authoritarian regime uses economic assistance policy because political decentralization may contradict regime survival. Although economic benefits can be used to buy political support, the distribution of these benefits is seldom equal. We argue that the unequal distribution is more salient in regions where ethnic minorities reside because the unusual demographic composition of those areas (...) make it difficult for the national government to evaluate the performance of the local government who is responsible for the distribution of the economic benefits. As a result, economic assistance may backfire in ethnic regions and intensify their existing conflicts. We develop a simple formal model to illustrate our arguments and explore the cases of Xinjiang and Hong Kong for empirical analysis. (shrink)